Triple Eight 'throwing the kitchen sink' at Feeney Ford

Jamie Whincup says Triple Eight Race Engineering is "throwing the kitchen sink" at the Broc Feeney/Nick Percat Ford, which will undergo a pre-race engine change.

The #88 Red Bull Ampol Mustang has been nondescript all weekend, with Feeney qualifying 12th for Sunday's Repco Bathurst 1000.

The problems for the #88 have been in play since Thursday, when braking issues arose. Come Friday, and Feeney failed to reach the Shootout for the first time in the Gen3 era.

The issues were ever apparent in Saturday practice, when Feeney radioed to engineer Martin Short: “I don’t really know. I can keep running long and see what it keeps getting like, but I am pushing."

Short replied: “It’s so hard to tell where we’re at pace-wise, I really don’t know. I think we’re okay, it’s hard to know.”

Six-time Bathurst winner Garth Tander was flummoxed in commentary, quipping: “[Feeney is] saying ‘I think’, but they’re not the words you’d usually hear from that garage, it’s so much more definitive,.

“They have a much better understanding of where they are in the pecking order. You just don’t get that feeling from the 88 at the moment, at all.”

Prior to the Shootout, Team Manager Mark Dutton told Supercars.com: "There's no mystery, it's just no handling the way we'd like it to."

It emerged later that afternoon that the engine will be changed on the car.

It comes after the engines were changed on the Fords of Matt Payne, Brodie Kostecki and Rylan Gray, with other teams — such as Walkinshaw TWG Racing with Ryan Wood's Toyota, after his crash — also making changes.

“It’s precautionary,” Managing Director Jamie Whincup told Supercars.com, when asked about the engine change.

“Broc's not that happy, so we'll make some big changes for the race tomorrow.

“No mystery. We’re just not as fast as we'd like to be, we're just throwing the kitchen sink at it.”

The sister Will Brown/Scott Pye car will start sixth, with Matt Stone Racing rookie Zach Bates scoring pole.