Feeney eyes 'crucial' weekend with new teammate Brown
Supercars
25 Jan
Will Brown will make Triple Eight debut at Bathurst 12 Hour
Brown joins Broc Feeney, Mikaël Grenier in Triple Eight Mercedes
Feeney hails early weekend alongside Brown "crucial"
The Repco Bathurst 12 Hour will prove a "crucial" bonding weekend for Broc Feeney and Will Brown ahead of their first year as Triple Eight Race Engineering teammates.
Brown has joined Feeney in the Triple Eight ranks, replacing NASCAR-bound Shane van Gisbergen.
The Queenslander has earned an early Triple Eight debut alongside Broc Feeney and Canadian Mikaël Grenier at the Repco Bathurst 12 Hour, which is a week before the Supercars season opener.
The 12 Hour gives Brown more valuable time working with Feeney and Triple Eight, which is determined to win back the crowns it lost to Brown’s old team Erebus Motorsport last year.
It comes after Feeney and Brown tested the team's new-look Mercedes-AMG at The Bend Motorsport Park last week, which marked Brown's first laps with his new team. Earlier, Brown joined Feeney at the team's Banyo base and looked over their newly-built Gen3 Camaro Supercars.
“Having back-to-back events at The Mountain is going to be awesome. If I could race at Bathurst every week I would,” Feeney said.
“So to do two in-a-row in some pretty cool cars is exciting. I love driving these GT cars and Bathurst is the best track for it.
“It’s exciting to have Will on the team for his first event with Triple Eight as well. To have a weekend working with him before we get to the first Supercars event is going to be pretty crucial.
"To have someone like Mikaël and his experience join us is going to be invaluable as well.”
Feeney (21) and Brown (25) form the youngest driver combination on the grid, and their combined 165 race starts is the second-fewest behind Penrite Racing's new Matt Payne/Richie Stanaway pairing, which has just 93 combined starts.
In contrast, Team 18's new pairing of Mark Winterbottom (621) and David Reynolds (432) has a staggering 1053 starts.
Feeney is also keen to add to his standout performance at last year's Bathurst 12 Hour, when he qualified on the front row amid a stacked field of international GT3 stars. He would finish fifth in the race, having come home third in the 2022 edition.
“The Bathurst 12 Hour is one of my favourite events of the year, so I can’t wait to get back there,” Feeney said.
“I’ve been using the off season to try and get as fit as possible, and we have a test day coming up along with some Supercars preparation.
"Last year, we qualified on the front row which was awesome, but we lacked in the race, so hopefully a bit more experience from myself and the team with these cars will help, and the goal is to be right up there at the end of the race against some super-fast guys in the field.
“It’s going to be challenging, but that’s why I love this race – you race against the best guys in the world on home soil.”
Brown and Feeney will test their Red Bull Ampol Camaros at Queensland Raceway on February 7, before linking up at the Repco Bathurst 12 Hour on February 16-18.
The 2024 Repco Supercars Championship will get underway at the Thrifty Bathurst 500 on February 23-25. Tickets are on sale now.
