Feeney firm on pit call after Brown plea

Broc Feeney remains firm on the call to give him pit priority in the Townsville finale amid Triple Eight teammate Will Brown’s plea for an earlier stop.

Feeney led Brown in a Red Bull Ampol 1-2 in the NTI Townsville 500, with the reigning champion charging from seventh to challenge the points leader.

As is commonplace in motorsport, the lead driver usually has priority in pit stops, and that was the case on Sunday.

Chasing a first win since March, Brown was keen to get a move on, but had a call to pit earlier — and undercut Feeney — tossed out by Triple Eight. Courtesy of leading the race, Feeney stopped first, and had enough to beat Brown in a tense final stint.

Speaking afterwards, Triple Eight boss Jamie Whincup was blunt, saying: “It’s classic 'both drivers wanting to win the race’. At the same time, you don't want them both screwing each other over by racing too hard. The drivers are entitled to ask what they want."

Speaking on Supercars’ Cool Down Lap podcast, Feeney said: “Obviously I don't hear all that going on, but yeah, obviously the first car on track always has pit priority.

“And yes, if I was Waters or someone like that, Will probably would've pitted early, but if it was someone else behind me, I probably would've pitted early to not get undercut.

“I totally get he obviously wanted to win the race, but I wanted to win the race. Look, we've got some great guys here that sort of handle those situations.

“With pit priority, we decided to go first and try and extend that lead a little bit and, and it was enough to win the race.”

Brown still came home with a wet sail, and Feeney knew he would have a challenge on his hands from the other garage.

"I think pretty early on, probably after maybe five to 10 laps, I realised that the guy I was gonna be racing was Will,” said Feeney, who leads Brown by 220 points with one Sprint Cup round left.

"And in that second stint, I did realise that he was faster than me. I came out on newer tyres and he hunted me down.

"There was a lot of that last stint where I didn't think I was gonna be able to hang on and I just sort of knew when he got to me that I just had to have enough there that he'd get stuck behind in the hot air.

"So he got to within half a second and I sort of matched him and then went a tenth quicker. And I knew from there that I'd be able to hang on, but it was gonna be bloody hard."