Feeney hails bold winning strategy

Bold strategy, backed up by strong car speed, paved the way to Broc Feeney’s victory at the Beaurepaires Melbourne SuperSprint.

Feeney raced from pole to victory in the Albert Park finale despite stopping at the end of the second lap.

The Red Bull Ampol Racing rookie wouldn’t see his closest rivals on the other strategy until they pitted on the last lap of the race.

Feeney emerged as the leader and eventual winner ahead of Andre Heimgartner and Brodie Kostecki, who raced from 14th to third.

The pole-sitter started on the Hard tyre and was quickly passed by Super Soft-shod Chaz Mostert and Will Brown.

As Mostert and Brown battled — the latter crashing on lap 4 — Feeney put his Super Softs to work and even set the fastest lap of the race.

It proved enough to comfortably win his second Supercars race, with Feeney joined by father Paul on the podium.

"When we knew we could pit on the first lap and it was going to be a rolling start, it made more sense to elect that strategy,” Feeney said.

"We had great car speed and managed to get the fastest lap. It was a much cruiser race than my first win in Adelaide, but I still had to work for it.

"I’ve dreamt of standing on top of an F1 podium since I was a little kid, and hearing the national anthem was a very cool moment.

"To have my dad there accepting the team’s trophy means a lot as well."

Feeney scored results of fourth, third and seventh heading into Sunday, with his Saturday performance keeping him in the hunt for the Larry Perkins Trophy.

The #88 Red Bull Ampol driver raced from 21st to 14th, having been caught out by a red flag in Race 5 qualifying.

Come Sunday, and he had the lead running — but given he was on the slower tyre, Feeney knew he had to make the first green lap work, rather than tumble down the order.

“It’s been a good weekend for us overall,” he said.

"We’ve had solid results all week, even yesterday when we started at the back of the pack.

"I didn’t get to stand on the podium the other day, but today’s pole position set us up well and a strategy that could have gone either way this morning, but the team certainly made the right call.

"We had good car speed all weekend and this win was just the finishing touch. From our side, today’s strategy depended on the first lap starting on the Hard tyres.

"We saw what happened to Anton [De Pasquale] yesterday – it’s quite easy to get swallowed up and sucked out the other side.”

Feeney is seventh overall, 146 points behind Kostecki, heading to Perth on April 28-30.