Flying Feeney tops opening Supercars practice

Broc Feeney has fired a warning in the first session of the 2024 Supercars session by convincingly topping practice at Bathurst.

Feeney was the only driver to record a 2m07s lap time which came on his very first flying lap and was unbeaten for the entire hour-long session.

The #88 Triple Eight Camaro with a 2:07.955 was 0.258s faster than Nick Percat who impressed in his maiden session for Matt Stone Racing.

Will Brown was third as Camaros filled the top five with Richie Stanaway the fastest Ford in sixth and more than a second off the pace despite a whack with the wall at The Dipper.

After a tumultuous summer break, Erebus Motorsport also could not catch a break when the season started.

Jack Le Brocq’s Erebus career barely got further than two corners before his #9 Camaro crawled to a halt.

A suspected oil pressure issue meant Le Brocq had to stop on the exit of Griffins Bend and approach to the Cutting, stopping all early running.

“Something sounds weird and then it all went quiet” were Le Brocq’s words relaid by the team to the TV coverage.

Le Brocq was unable to record a lap as Erebus performed an engine change keeping the #9 in the garage.

Once green flag running began, Erebus’ title rival from last year Triple Eight rapidly fired out of the blocks.

Feeney led the charge going straight to P1 as the only driver in the 2m07s window as he led new teammate Will Brown in a Triple Eight one-two.

Brown and Andre Heimgartner were the only drivers to be within a second of the fast #88.

Being the first practice session of the year, drivers were pushing the limits. Both Mark Winterbottom and Bryce Fullwood slightly got out of shape and found the grass on the exit of Skyline.

Tickford teammates Cam Waters and Thomas Randle shortcut the Esses in formation, while the #6 Monster Mustang bowled a wide at the end of Murrays Corner.

Stanaway found some early pace in the #26 Penrite Racing Mustang, being the first Ford into the top five.

He shot to fourth with a 2:09.0014 but any hopes of going faster were vanished by a costly mistake at The Dipper.

The Kiwi carried too much speed into the tight and undulating left hander and whacked both the inside and outside concrete walls on approach.

With the front left badly damaged having grazed the wall, Stanaway pulled up on the exit of Forests Elbow, bringing out another red flag at roughly the halfway mark.

As teams resettled into a rhythm, Percat had pace to burn, being the first to come with half a second of Feeney.

Percat pushed the #10 Matt Stone Racing Camaro up to second, just 0.2584s away from Feeney.

For the second time in the session Fullwood and Winterbottom pushed a touch too hard, this time both utilising the escape road at Hell Corner. Before too long Macauley Jones did the same.

Inside the final 10 minutes a number of teams performed some late fresh tyre runs.

One of those was Cam Hill, who joined his MSR teammate into the top five, but he was one of the few to improve their positions.

Main image: Peter Norton EPIC Sports Photography