Feeney laments 'kick in the guts', defends Whincup over errors

Broc Feeney was disappointed to cop his worst result of the season at The Bend, but defended co-driver Jamie Whincup on a day “ruined” by a refuelling issue.

Feeney/Whincup started from pole position, but crawled to 19th and over a minute behind the winning Brodie Kostecki/Todd Hazelwood Ford.

After running second to the first stops, Whincup effectively dropped down the order to outside the top 10 with a costly fuel offset.

Only 18 litres of fuel was pumped into the #88 Camaro at it's first stop, in a fuel tank that can carry up to 121 litres. Whincup was forced to pit again for fuel just four laps shy of making his minimum lap requirements.

The #88 Red Bull Ampol Camaro was never in it from there, but Whincup fired off twice at Turn 10 pushing hard to make up time.

After three tough stints with Whincup at the wheel, which accounted for more than half of the race, Feeney took over and could only recover to 19th.

"Yeah, it's pretty disappointing,” Feeney said on the Cool Down Lap presented by Moza Racing.

“Worst day of the year and obviously the biggest points paying day of the year so far. Obviously one crucial moment ruined our day.

“The plan was to get off the line and lead into [Turn] 1 and obviously 38 [Kostecki/Hazelwood] was probably a bit quicker than us. Our day was ruined in that first pit stop, unfortunately.”

Feeney entered the weekend locked into The Finals and 345 points clear of closest rival Matt Payne. With Payne third on Sunday, the margin was slashed heading to Bathurst.

Whincup’s Bend campaign also featured a crash with the sister car of Scott Pye in Saturday morning practice, with Sunday bringing an end to what was a tough weekend for the Supercars Hall of Famer.

When asked about Whincup’s offs, Feeney said: “We were done already, and I don't think the car was a dream to drive at all today. It was pretty hard work even when I got out there.

"We were already a minute down or something like that, and he's having a crack and speared off. He did probably 60% of the race today, so it's good miles for him.

"The difference between 19th and 15’s not gonna change our year, so we're here to win. Unfortunately we didn't do that, so we'll just try and learn from it.”

It was just the third time Feeney missed the top 10 this year.

“We're all disappointed. I think we were still right in the fight for a podium without the drama,” he continued.

"As a team, we'll go and debrief and we'll figure out what went wrong and make sure it doesn't happen again. For sure, we need to be better.”