Triple Eight ponders team orders

Triple Eight Race Engineering will ponder whether or not team orders could have been used before Broc Feeney was spun by Thomas Randle.

Whilst Cameron Waters drove to a commanding victory, the Triple Eight teammates found themselves in a close contest with Randle for second in the closing stages of Race 18.

A quick tyre change had allowed Brown to jump the #55 to snatch second in the lane, but the pair found themselves thrillingly racing side by side.

After Randle lost out in the nail-biting exchange by finding the grass coming out of the final corner, he slipped to fourth as Feeney got by.

The #88 then caught the back of the #87 as the championship leader nursed a flat-spotted tyre.

However, before Feeney could think about making a move, he was taken out by a locked-up Randle at the hairpin, falling from third to 15th and losing valuable championship points.

As part of its post-race review, Triple Eight’s Technical Director Jeromy Moore noted the team will look at whether or not team orders could have been used to avoid the situation.

“As a team we always like our drivers racing,” he said. 

“We don’t want to lock the race down and make it boring for fans. 

“At the end of the day we are an entertainment business, so we want to make sure that we are putting on a good show and allow the drivers to do what they can for their own championship.

“But we will go back and have a look to see if we could have done anything better there or not. 

“It’s always a tough decision to call a switch or not in the heat of the moment. 

“You’re never going to get it right 100 percent of the time.

“The main thing is to allow them to race as much as they can and leave it on the track and less in the pit bunker.”

Brown put his hand up stating that if asked he “would listen” to team orders.

“We had really good pace, but I flat spotted a tire in the early stages of the first lap and I was limping the car home,” Brown recalled.

“I was hoping we could do four tyres in the stop and change that front, but unfortunately we could not due to a Safety Car. 

“I managed to limp it home and have a great battle with Thomas.

“(But) unfortunately, and probably due to me being slow, Broc got spun around by Thomas.”

Feeney tried to look at the positives after the frustrating finish.

“It’s pretty frustrating. Same as last year, at the last race before Enduro’s I got spun out and lost to heaps of points,” he said.

In qualifying, we probably had the potential to be on pole again. We certainly had the car to do it, we just didn’t execute.

“But to move forward in the race into third and then to have the pace to certainly end up on the podium but fought for second and got taken out at the end hurts.

“Getting to Will’s bumper and ending up racing him was really good for us.

“But overall, I think we had a really good weekend. Particularly the things we’ve been trying to improve throughout the weekends, it’s been really good.”

The Feeney spin came a decade after Triple Eight team-mates Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes clashed when fighting for the lead at the same circuit in 2014.

Image: Mark Horsburgh

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