'Massive mistake': Skaife stunned by Triple Eight, Whincup errors

Triple Eight’s tough times at The Bend caught the eye of Mark Skaife, who labelled the team’s rollercoaster weekend as "very uncharacteristic.”

After ending Friday on top, Triple Eight began Saturday with two damaged cars after a bizarre crash amid a Safety Car procedure test.

The crash ruled the Will Brown/Scott Pye car out for the rest of the session, with Brown slumping to 16th in qualifying. Jamie Whincup, meanwhile, was fined over the crash.

Broc Feeney responded with a brilliant performance to claim pole, breathing life back into the team and delivering the #88 Red Bull Ampol Camaro the tag of hot favourite on Sunday.

However, despite Brown/Pye fighting back to fourth, the day unraveled for the Feeney/Whincup entry after a refuelling issue, with Whincup firing off the road twice. Feeney took over, but could only recover to 19th, his worst result of the season.

Championship leader and Repco Sprint Cup winner Feeney labelled the day a “kick in the guts,” while Whincup said it was a “long old day.”

For Skaife, the hiccups were unbecoming of the "number one team in the country,” given the #88 in particular began Sunday as the one to beat.

"Huge damage. You can see the look there on Broc Feeney's face,” said Skaife post-race, regarding the practice crash.

"But Feeney responded — that lap yesterday in the Top Ten Shootout was superb. He put it on pole position, and I thought from that time on they were going to be red hot favourites.

“As it turned out, that massive drama in the pit stop — the fuel usage and the rate that that fuel flow went in, they only got 18 litres — that basically wrecked their day. It put them to the back of the field.

“For the number one team in the country, you did not expect that."

Feeney suggested Whincup’s errors were a product of a poor-handling car. Skaife, though, quipped that the pit error also left the seven-time champion “rattled."

“He did almost 60 laps, which. He would've thought he was gonna do 38 as a minimum,” Skaife said on Whincup.

"But one of the things I think when you get rattled like that and you do more laps than you'd like, you make a couple of little mistakes, you just get out of sync. And that's exactly what happened to Jamie today."

A venting issue was behind the refuelling drama, with the team left stunned as Whincup pulled away, later coming to terms that the win was beyond them.

All told, for a team with multiple championships and Bathurst wins, Triple Eight’s tough day caught Skaife off-guard, the Hall of Famer adding: “The mistake from Whincup, it’s totally against the grain.

“When you think about the amount of wins he’s had… he was mistake-free as one of the best drivers of all time.

“I think the thing with the team, and the fuel rate issue and their application we spoke about how hard that is, we know that the coupling is very sensitive...

“I did not expect… we talk about mistakes, and you need to make the least amount of mistakes, that’s been Triple Eight. That’s one of the signature parts of how they prepare and how they go about their job.

“And for them to make a massive mistake and put them back so far, that was very uncharacteristic."

Feeney and Brown remain first and third in the championship, with Brown also leading the Chevrolet contingent in the Ryco Enduro Cup standings in fourth..

The 2025 Repco Supercars Championship resumes at the Repco Bathurst 1000 on October 9-12. Tickets for the Great Race are on sale now.