Triple Eight pair score Saturday wins as Broc Feeney secures Sprint Cup title
Broc Feeney and Will Brown scored a win apiece in the two Saturday races at the Ipswich Super 440, with Feeney becoming the first driver in Supercars history to secure the Repco Sprint Cup title.
The revised scoring system in place for this season sees the series run across three stages, with the Sprint Cup incorporating the first eight events of the year before the two rounds that make up the Enduro Cup.
The top ten drivers – including the Sprint Cup and Enduro Cup champions – will then fight for the title across the final three events in a format similar to that seen in NASCAR, meaning Feeney is the first driver to be officially confirmed in the Finals Cup line-up.
Feeney had bagged pole ahead of Brown for the opening race following a chaotic qualifying session in which the final stages of Q1 were affected by a traffic jam as drivers tried to find space on track for their quick laps.
The championship leader was in dominant form when the race got underway, minus fourth-placed Chaz Mostert who was forced to dive in to the pits with a brake issue rather than take up his spot on the grid.
Brown tried to get ahead mid-way through the opening lap but then made a mistake that instead saw him lose ground to Ryan Wood and Kai Allen – the latter having made a storming start from eighth on the grid.
Allen managed to get ahead of Wood into second spot, but Feeney was able to romp clear at the front of the field to establish a handy lead over the pack behind as Wood and Brown found themselves backed up behind Allen.
Having maintained his lead after the stops, Feeney was cruising to victory when the safety car was called out following a trip into the gravel for David Reynolds, with the race ending under caution.
It gave Feeney the win from Allen and Wood, with Brown having to settle for fourth having been unable to regain the ground he lost at the start.
Brodie Kostecki and Cooper Murray rounded out the top six ahead of Cameron Hill and Anton De Pasquale, with Aaron Cameron and Tom Randle completing the top ten.
It marked a best result to date for both Hill and Cameron, with the latter quartet of drivers benefitting from a penalty handed out to Will Davison for contact mid-race with Jack Le Brocq that dropped him from seventh across the line down to 22nd.
Cam Waters was another driver to finish down the order having suffered a trip off into the gravel on oil, resulting in him being back in 17th, with Mostert four laps down in 25th as a result of his early issues.
Feeney also lined up on pole for the second race of the weekend and led the early stages after getting away well off the line, with chaos behind as Cooper Murray was sent into the air after contact with Matt Payne and Thomas Randle, Cameron ended up in the gravel, and Kostecki and Le Brocq were all forced to pit with damage.
Understandably the safety car was called out and Feeney led the field at the restart from Brown and Wood, who had swapped places when the lights went out.
Feeney however was then handed a five-second penalty for a jump start that he was forced to serve at his pitstop, which enabled Brown to move into the lead. Feeney closed in on his team-mate but was unable to to launch a bid for the lead and a double win, as Brown held on to grab a first win since the Australian Grand Prix weekend.
Behind them, Wood took third spot ahead of De Pasquale, with Waters rebounding form his race one drama to take fifth. Payne, Mostert and Richie Stanaway completed the top eight.
