Gamble backfires as Brown, Feeney sink

Red Bull Ampol Racing has suffered another chastening result in Townsville, with a bold Will Brown gamble backfiring amid more troubles for Broc Feeney.

Brown held provisional pole in Race 21 qualifying, but opted to get out of his #888 Red Bull Ampol Ford Mustang ahead of the final runs in Q2.

However, the 2024 Supercars champion could only watch on as the times tumbled, Brown ending up 12th and nearly 0.5s off the ultimate pace.

Meanwhile, Feeney — who lost the championship lead to Matt Payne on Friday, slumped to 18th — a day after qualifying only 16th for Race 20.

Before Q2, Feeney remonstrated to his engineer Martin Short, saying: “It’s more than a little bit of a think. Just slow.”

Speaking post-session, Brown admitted the gamble was planned, given he put a bigger price on having fresher rubber for Saturday's 200km race.

"The problem is, you run another set of tyres, so you get into the Shootout, you've got no green tyres for the Shootout," Brown said on the broadcast.

"You're going to qualify, eighth, ninth, or 10th anyway, and use up your tyres for the race.

"We took the chance that we might not get through, but we'll have greens and all that, We were hoping to get through, that was the plan, and it didn't happen.

"We're only three, four spots worse off than we were going to start if we ran in that last one. Got green tyres, we came through yesterday, we'll do it again today."

Brown's comments are particularly timely, given he charged from 19th to seventh on Friday, with Feeney vaulting from 16th to 10th.

Brown and Feeney will look to again jump up the order in Race 21, which commences at 3:05pm AEST.