Feeney feeling 'lost' over surprise qualifying slump
Broc Feeney fails to progress to Q2 in Boost Mobile Qualifying
Championship leader to start 14th, teammate Will Brown 20th
Feeney left to bemoan lack of tyre grip, but still confident in car performance
In a Boost Mobile Qualifying session that left a jumbled order for the Race 20 grid, perhaps the biggest shock of all was championship leader Broc Feeney.
The runaway leader entered the weekend in the best form of his young career, having won four poles in a row for the second time this season, and coming off a remarkable five-race winning streak.
However, that hot streak came to an abrupt halt on Friday afternoon in Townsville, with the #88 Camaro set to start from a lowly 14th for this afternoon's 100km sprint race.
It's Feeney's worst qualifying since he qualified 20th amidst Triple Eight's Taupō woes, and came as a complete shock given he had shown plenty of speed in the day's two practice sessions.
"I'm not really sure. I mean, we've pretty much been top two all day," Feeney said.
"Thought we rolled out pretty strong. Even in the first run for our first lap, we were still sort of top two and yeah, it just didn't really turn on for us. Just sort of got through the first couple of corners and didn't feel like a terrible lap, just probably didn't have the grip there that we wanted.
"Started the second and was a bit faster, but then lost the tyre towards the end. So anyway. To be honest, a bit lost, because I thought we were in the fight for pole there.
"Anyway, see what we can do today. Lucky it's not many points today, see what we can learn in the race and then fix what we did wrong for tomorrow."
Things were even worse for teammate Will Brown, who after crashing at the end of Practice 1, could only qualify 20th, his worst qualifying result of the season so far.
Despite the risk of being involved in a lap 1 incident in the midfield, the 22-year-old is still confident that he has the race package to drag him back up the order: "As I said, it didn't feel like terrible. Probably just didn't have the maximum grip that I felt like I've had today.
"So just sort of turned into [Turn] 1 and didn't feel like it gripped up as it has in some of the other sessions.
"So look, it's probably not a car thing, maybe it's a bit of a tyre prep thing or something like that. Anyway, it's done.
"We'll see what we can do to sarvo, and then, as I said, it's not, not crazy points today, so it's not the end of the world, but we just need to make sure we're in the fight tomorrow."
Brodie Kostecki will start from pole for Race 20, which begins at 3:40pm AEST.
