What the Darwin Triple Crown may have lacked in on-track action it made up for in importance for the championship battle.
After a couple of rounds of one-way traffic in favour of title leader Will Brown, Hidden Valley saw momentum neutralised, with Broc Feeney striking back to keep himself in the frame with a pair of statement victories.
It also bought him ample breathing room to the pack behind, with Chaz Mostert again struggling with his inconsistent Walkinshaw Andretti United Mustang.
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HIT: FEENEY CLOSES POINTS DEFICIT WITH WEEKEND SWEEP
In a season looking for a driver to really grab it by the scruff of the neck, Broc Feeney stood up and put himself forward.
The narrative heading into Darwin was that the Triple Eight incumbent was being shown the way by new teammate Will Brown, whose consistency had earnt him a healthy points lead.
Feeney, meanwhile, appeared to have got lost in the last couple of months, losing points in Taupō and then failing to stand on the podium in Perth.
The 21-year-old is an analytical driver, and he hit the books as soon as he got home to delve into the deficit.
He came out all guns blazing in Darwin.
Only a superb James Golding denied him pole on Saturday, and some robust racing took him to victory from there.
Sunday was emphatic, with a dominant pole and an ultimately comfortable win.
He’s the first driver to sweep an entire multi-race round this season and the first to do so since Brodie Kostecki in Tailem Bend last season.
With Brown finishing third and second, Feeney scraped back 28 points to close the margin to 108 points and earnt a whole lot of momentum heading into the halfway mark of the campaign.
“I couldn’t keep conceding rounds to Will, to be honest,” Feeney told Fox Sports. “There’ve been a lot of rounds where arguably we were equal speed or had the potential to probably get the points over him, but he’s edged us over a lot.
“To get some good points this weekend — and back-to-back wins, unreal for me, my first one — it means a lot.”
They key now for Feeney, who prizes consistency above all else in his driving, is to keep it up.
“For me this mid part of the year is really just trying to set up the end of the year, just be in the hunt come enduro time, get the ball rolling, the momentum going, and then [in] enduros anything can happen,” he added. “You go for the win at those two and set up the end of the year.
“It’s a big focus trying to just be in the fight for those next three or four rounds, not having the bad days like we’ve had.”
HIT: JAMES GOLDING GIVES PREMIAIR STATEMENT LAP
For so much of Saturday James Golding and PremiAir racing looked like the unlikely usurpers of Triple Eight’s ultimately glittering weekend.
PremiAir has been struggling for consistency this year, with only a handful of top-10 finishes delivered by its Triple Eight-built Camaros.
Much hinged on the in-season test at Queensland Raceway late last month, where the team left no stone unturned.
Will Brown was drafted in to complete some laps as a troubleshooter, and the rest of the test was spent focusing on the supersoft tyre, which was in use at the Darwin Triple Crown.
“It is safe to say we got a lot out of this test day, and we are feeling strong as we get ready to head north with a game plan well and truly locked down,” team manager Stephen Robertson said ahead of the round.
He probably didn’t know just how right he was.
Golding was quick out of the blocks on Friday, topping qualifying to claim the first leg of the Triple Crown and duly converting in the shootout ahead of Feeney.
With teammate Tim Slade also cracking the top-10 shootout for Saturday’s race, the weekend had the feeling of being an important step forward in the growth of this team in its third year in the series.
“It’s been two and a half years in the making,” Peter Xiberras told Fox Sports on Saturday morning. “For the team and the sponsors and supporters and everyone involved it’s a little bit of payback so far. Hopefully there’s more to come.”
Golding was disappointed to be unable to turn pole to victory or even a podium. The team found it somewhat controversial that Feeney was unpunished for barging its pole-getter at the turn 6 hairpin, though the stewards clarified that Golding had left the door open on the brakes, making the move legal.
A slow pit stop waiting for cars to clear the lane dropped him to fourth at the flag.
But the importance of the weekend stands two years on from Golding’s call-up to the team in a Supercars field that feels less predictable than ever.
Unbelievable collision during first lap! | 01:26
MISS: MOSTERT’S SATURDAY COMEBACK COMES TO NOTHING
Walkinshaw Andretti United and star driver Chaz Mostert were optimistic ahead of Darwin, having won at last in the team’s ford era in Perth.
There was a feeling the team was getting to grips with the car’s gripes after a super difficult winless 2023 campaign.
Friday showed up that thinking as being very wide of the mark, with Mostert bombing out in 22nd and Ryan Wood second from last in 24th, sandwiching Triple Eight wildcard Cooper Murray.
What happened next, though, was a reminder of how badly the sport needs Mostert in the title fight, with the 32-year-old putting in the drive of the round.
Mostert gained a remarkable 17 places on his grid spot to end the race harrying pole-getter Golding for fourth place.
While execution in the pit lane was slick, there wasn’t much clever strategy required; it was a pure beast-mode performance.
“That was a big redemption drive,” Mostert said. “No-one dropped their head, which was really cool to see. Everyone backed each other, and we knew we could still turn it into a positive.
That was as good as it got, though.
Mostert and Wood qualified 20th and 24th on Sunday, but this time there was no redemption drive. The rest of the grid improved their race cars between days, but WAU was stuck at a dead end, the pair finishing a barely improved 17th and 24th, not helped by a slow stop for Mostert.
It left Mostert 279 points off the title lead, having looked like a dark horse heading into Darwin.
Qualifying — particularly on the supersoft tyre — remains a weakness, but such dramatic inconsistency on account of rubber compound is concerning for the team’s ambition to return to regular wins.
“We can’t quite put our finger on it,” Wood admitted afterwards.
There’s optimism that most of the rest of the year is run on harder tyres, but WAU will need to do some serious convincing after this weekend.
HIT: RETURN OF THE CHAMP
You’d never have guessed Brodie Kostecki would have been able to pull a podium out of the bag after his horror start to the weekend.
He missed a heap of Friday practice to engine problems, and a steering rack issue left him 11th in qualifying.
More pain came to him on Saturday, when he couldn’t even take to the grid with a suspected electrical issue affecting the clutch. The team subsequently had to change the engine ahead of Sunday action.
But on the final day in Darwin the reigning champion bounced back spectacularly, qualifying on the front row and finishing third behind the dominant Triple Eight teammates.
It was comfortably — by far — the best result of his truncated season, having previously recorded a best finish of 13th in his six races to date.
It was likewise Erebus’s best result of the year.
But Kostecki felt it was more than just a landmark result.
Having looked like a shadow of his dominant 2023-spec self in the early rounds of his comeback, the 26-year-old feels like he’s finally building some momentum again.
“We’ve had a bit of a rough start,” he said. It’s really hard in this game. It’s very much based on momentum; we haven’t had it too much lately.
“We missed the first two days with the engine issue that we had. To start on the front row today and to get a podium as quite cool.
“To be honest, the car didn’t feel that great in the race balance-wise and we were still able to get an easy third.”
It’s too late for Kostecki and Erebus to defend their championships, but they can’t be ruled out as factors in the second half of the season to complicate matters for what’s increasingly looking like an intrateam battle for the title at Triple Eight.