The hidden win for Brown in Feeney battle
Will Brown led home Broc Feeney in all three Darwin races
Brown hadn't achieved such a feat since 2024 Sydney round
Feeney still leads Brown by 333 points in the championship
While Red Bull Ampol Racing failed to reach the podium in Darwin, Will Brown had a quiet sweep to savour over teammate Broc Feeney.
For the first time since Taupō last season, Triple Eight was unable to trouble the podium at a multi-race weekend. Penrite Racing seized the teams' championship lead, while Matt Payne slashed Feeney's drivers' championship lead from 90 to 15 points.
However, a closer look at the results offered a glimpse of hope for Brown, who for the first time since Sydney 2024, beat Feeney in each start at a multi-race round.
Brown finished fifth, fifth and fourth to Feeney's 14th, seventh and fifth. Crucially, Feeney was on course to finish in front of Brown in the finale, but a late Safety Car left Triple Eight scratching its head over a team orders fumble.
Since joining Triple Eight in 2024, save for his championship win, Brown has largely been outperformed by Feeney. Through six rounds, Feeney leads the qualifying head-to-head 14-5, and the race head-to-head 13-5.
Brown beat Feeney in every race at the Taupō, Perth and Sydney rounds in 2024. In the rounds since, Feeney finished ahead in Tasmania, Darwin, Townsville, Gold Coast (2025), Sydney and Tasmania (2026).
While it may mean little in the grand scheme of things, the #888 side of the garage managed to turn the tides, with Brown feeling much sharper in Darwin than he had previously in his Ford Mustang.
"I think we're doing a good job of building and getting more solid results," Brown said.
"I think we did a better job in both qualifying and racing, consistently in that top 10 this weekend, and I think we did a better job in the race runs — we're out there and able to fight. We got a lot stronger on race pace, so that's a positive.
"It felt a little bit more like last year, where we were really strong and could get through the field... We've just got to build on that and keep putting it all together."
2015 Supercars champion Mark Winterbottom also noticed, although ceded that Feeney was fighting braking instability all weekend, saying on Supercars' The Run Home podcast: "Will Brown actually had him beat until Sunday. Effectively, [Brown] beat [Feeney] all weekend.
"So, a bit different Triple Eight on the weekend. But I think for Broc, there were little things holding him back.”
Having claimed just two podiums in 19 starts — only Feeney in 2022 and Jamie Whincup in 2006 had worse records for Triple Eight in the last 20 years — Brown's task has evolved to trying to move forward in the points.
"I think we're seventh now in the championship, but we're not just trying to stay in the top 10 — we're trying to move forward," Brown said.
"We want to be in the top five, you know. It's not that many points, really, to get to the top five, and there's a lot of big races left to go. Bathurst, The Bend — there's a lot of points on the line.
"So all we'll be working to do is try and get into the top five by the Finals and then, you know, have a real crack when we're there."
Brown will resume his 2026 campaign at the NTI Townsville 500 on July 10-12.
