Whincup rejects Triple Eight team orders conspiracy

Jamie Whincup has rejected a theory that Triple Eight’s Townsville team orders demonstrated it is now favouring Broc Feeney because Shane van Gisbergen may leave soon for NASCAR.

There was tension in the Red Bull Ampol Racing camp when van Gisbergen was told he would have to hand back fourth position to his team-mate if he was unable to catch and pass Brad Jones Racing’s Andre Heimgartner for a podium in the finale of the NTI Townsville 500.

The #97 Camaro pilot argued that he had overtaken fairly and squarely after Feeney had worn out his rear tyres, but would slow just before the finish line in order to reverse the positions.

Triple Eight Race Engineering Team Manager Mark Dutton put it down to a “breakdown in communication,” claiming that Feeney had earlier been told to use up his rears in a bid to run down the third-placed #8 R&J Batteries Camaro, unbeknownst to van Gisbergen.

He also cited the importance of the ‘round win’, unofficial though that honour may be, in the event that the podium was not achievable, with the extra nine points for finishing fourth meaning Feeney pipped Erebus Motorsport’s Will Brown to top weekend points haul.

Asked this weekend at Sydney Motorsport Park if Triple Eight will given Feeney “preferential treatment” should SVG indeed decide his time in Supercars is up, Team Principal Whincup gave a similar explanation to Dutton’s.

“That’s a loaded question,” replied the seven-time drivers’ champion.

“There was no preferential treatment that went on at Townsville in any way. No, no, no, that certainly didn’t happen.

“It was a situation where, yeah, we could have done a better job with communicating but no one was hard done by in any way.

“We’ve never had a number one and a number two [driver]. We’ve had equal opportunity for both drivers, which means both sets of engineers, both sets of mechanics, and that will continue forever.”

Van Gisbergen won in his NASCAR Cup Series debut at the Chicago street circuit earlier this month and has now been locked into a second start with Trackhouse Racing, on the Indianapolis road course in mid-August.

Whincup says he would like a decision on the three-time Supercars champion’s future before then, but has not set a firm deadline.

Erebus’s Brodie Kostecki will also be in the field at Indy, making his debut with Richard Childress Racing.

Practice 1 for the Beaurepaires Sydney SuperNight starts this afternoon at 12:15 local time/AEST, although team bosses including Whincup would either prefer that the Supercars had already been on-track yesterday or that the event was a genuine two-day affair.