Broc Feeney secures Darwin double

Broc Feeney secured his sixth and seventh wins of the Supercars season with a double victory in the two Saturday races in Darwin – allowing the Triple Eight driver to extend his advantage at the head of the championship standings.

Feeney had qualified on pole position for both Round 17 and Round 18 of the season, but emerged on top of a chaotic first race that included multiple safety car periods following a raft of incidents on track.

Things went wrong right at the start when Jaxon Evans went into the barriers on the exit of turn one to bring out the safety car, with chaos on the restart when Ryan Wood slowed with an engine issue – forcing drivers behind to try and swerve around his car in avoidance.

It resulted in Jack Le Brocq being forced into the wall, with another incident later in the lap involving David Reynolds, Nick Percat and Richie Stanaway bringing the safety car straight back out.

Once the race got underway in earnest, Feeney was able to to lead from the front ahead of Cameron Waters and Brodie Kostecki – although the latter would be handed a time penalty for making contact with Matt Payne shortly after the restart.

Feeney held the lead through to the stops where he extended his advantage over Waters by only taking two tyres rather than four, rejoining ahead of Payne who had taken the decision to pit early.

Waters dropped down to fifth as a result of taking four tyres but raced his way back through to second spot but the gap to Feeney at the front was too great as the points leader took the win by just under two seconds – despite admitting afterwards that he had been dealing with a clutch issue on his car.

Waters took second spot ahead of Payne, with Bryce Fullwood, James Courtney and Chaz Mostert rounding out the top six after a late race three-car battle between the trio.

Nick Percat was seventh, with defending champion Will Brown having to settle for eighth place having endured a tough qualifying session that left him down in 14th spot on the grid.

Feeney’s impressive form at Hidden Valley Raceway then continued in race two with another controlled race from the front, despite being kept honest by Anton De Pasquale throughout.

With De Pasquale having lost ground after the pitstops, Feeney had a comfortable gap out front as his rival worked his way back through into second spot with his victory being secured late on when the safety car was called out following an incident at the hairpin that left David Reynolds stricken on the circuit.

The race would end under caution with Feeney victorious ahead of De Pasquale, with third spot going to Kai Allen as he bagged his first podium finish in the series.

Andre Heimgartner took fourth spot ahead of Kostecki, with Fullwood and Brown behind; the latter having once again been left to come through the field from back in 17th to lose more ground.

Payne, Ryan Wood and Waters rounded out the top ten.