Whincup's simple response to Triple Eight pit priority call
Will Brown settled for second behind Broc Feeney in Townsville finale
Brown wanted to pit pit earlier than planned, which could have effected undercut
Feeney leads Brown by 220 points heading to Ipswich on August 8-10
Jamie Whincup has acknowledged with Will Brown’s desire to have a crack in the Townsville finale, but insisted he didn’t want his drivers "screwing each other.”
Brown had to settle for second in Sunday’s NTI Townsville 500 finale behind teammate Broc Feeney, having closed the gap in the final stint.
Starting seventh, Brown emerged as Feeney's closest rival after Cam Waters fell away, but the reigning champion’s fate was somewhat sealed during the pit stops.
A plea from Brown to take his second stop earlier than planned — effecting an undercut on Feeney — was tossed out by Triple Eight.
By virtue of being the lead car, Feeney had pit preference over Brown, which is common practice in racing.
When asked about the situation post-race, former racer turned Triple Eight boss Whincup put it simply: “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 and we've got a fantastic engineering group to work it out back at base.”
In the final laps, Brown got to within 0.5s, but wasn’t close enough to have a crack at passing Feeney and crossed the line three seconds down.
"It was a tough one, I trying to drive through and get on the back of Broc, I didn't have anything for him at the end there which was a little bit disappointing,” he said.
Later, he joked: "I was hoping I'd get close enough, but then I worked out he's a team car and I can't hit him, so l thought, 'well, what am I gonna do when I actually get to him?'
"I thought I had something for Broc at the end, but just trying to catch up that three seconds, you use the tyres so much to get within that one second buffer and straight away you start noticing you lose the grip."
Supercars returns to Queensland Raceway on August 8-10 to round out the Repco Sprint Cup at the Century Batteries Ipswich Super 440. Tickets are on sale now.
