Untouchable Feeney takes another pole
The battle for Race 23 pole was all about one man, Broc Feeney, as he set record-breaking pace at Queensland Raceway.
Feeney was unbeaten throughout both segments of qualifying to take an 11th pole of 2025 by a tenth over teammate Will Brown.
The #88 posted a 1:08.1301, which was a massive three-tenths clear of the previous lap record set by Scott McLaughlin in 2017.
Amazingly Feeney even revealed he made a few mistakes in what appeared to be a perfect lap.
After an all Triple Eight front row, it is an all WAU second row with Ryan Wood edging Chaz Mostert, while Brodie Kostecki completed the top five.
Rookies Cooper Murray, Kai Allen and Aaron Cameron all impressed to fill positions seven to nine.
It was far from a simple session with traffic creating some F3-style madness.
Q1
Feeney reasserted his dominance at the start of qualifying by going to the top in each of his first three laps.
His 1:08.5900 saw him enjoy a tenth over teammate Brown, while Wood, Evans and Kostecki were best of the rest.
Everyone aside from Percat, Le Brocq, Crick and Hill set times, but were on used tyres.
The likes of Reynolds and Payne carried a lot of speed through Turns 1 and 2, sliding to the grass.
With everyone desperate to get into the 10, there was some Monza style traffic madness at Turn 3 with cars everywhere and Waters even making slight contact with Payne.
They all settled themselves out with Hill the first to make a move, rising from 24th to fourth.
Teammate Percat was on a purple first sector and he rose to eighth, but amid the final flurry, he dropped to 16th.
Le Brocq went from 25th to seventh before falling abck down to 17th, but his teammate Murray had the speed and secured eighth and a Q2 berth.
This left Mostert on the bubble but bounced into the top four.
Many saved their best to last with Allen rising 18 spots to fifth.
Another rookie in Cameron shot the lights out and secured his first Q2 berth.
The BRT youngster managed to deny Waters a place by 0.02s and the Tickford star was caught in the middle of the madness at Turn 3.
“It was a bit of a laugh on that out lap with everyone trying to get to the front of the pack and get two laps,” Waters recalled.
“It was full on, but we were not quite quick enough. Struggling with the balance of our car. Made it slightly better, but not enough.”
Meanwhile, Feeney was in a league of his own, improving to a 1:08.1886.
He enjoyed a massive three-tenth margin over Brown, while Wood, Mostert, Allen, Kostecki, De Pasquale, Murray, Hill and Murray joined him in Q2.
In addition to Waters, Courtney, Reynolds and Randle were the hard-luck stories, missing Q2 by less than half a tenth.
Payne had a tough time, only being 18th, while Davison was 24th and Golding was last, being more than a second away from the rest of the field.
Q2
On the opening run on used tyres Feeney again fired clear, posting a 1:08.2754.
This was a massive three and a half tenths clear of the rest of the field that were led by youngsters Murray and Wood.
Kostecki and Hill were the only members of the top 10 not to do an early run.
Cameron was the first to post a lap on fresh tyres and rose to second briefly before being eclipsed by Brown.
Yet again no one could catch Feeney as he improved to a 1:08.2736.
But more speed was coming as drivers found more time on their second push lap.
Brown managed to finally beat his teammate, but only for a matter of seconds as Feeney jumped a tenth clear on his final lap.
Wood settled into third ahead of teammate Mostert, while Kostecki was the last to post a time and knocked De Pasquale out of the top five.
Super Soft qualifying for Race 24 is up next.
Image: DMAC Photography
Qualifying Race 23
Pos Driver Time
1 Broc Feeney 1:08.1301
2 Will Brown +0.1119
3 Ryan Wood +0.1866
4 Chaz Mostert +0.2576
5 Brodie Kostecki +0.3156
6 Anton De Pasquale +0.3208
7 Cooper Murray +0.3675
8 Kai Allen +0.4462
9 Aaron Cameron +0.4573
10 Cameron Hill +0.5255
11 Cameron Waters +0.6516
12 James Courtney +0.6529
13 David Reynolds +0.6723
14 Thomas Randle +0.6921
15 Jaxon Evans +0.7548
16 Nick Percat +0.7651
17 Jack Le Brocq +0.8025
18 Matt Payne +0.8743
19 Bryce Fullwood +0.8998
20 Andre Heimgartner +0.9307
21 Zach Bates +0.9343
22 Richie Stanaway +0.9968
23 Macauley Jones +1.0507
24 Will Davison +1.0912
25 Cameron Crick +1.1879
26 James Golding +2.4259
2025 Ipswich Super440 (All Times AEST)
Friday 8 August
Practice 1 – 1: Broc Feeney 1:09.2078 2: Anton De Pasquale +0.1965 3: Cameron Hill +0.2271
Practice 2 – 1: Will Brown 1:08.4927 2: Broc Feeney +0.1419 3: Ryan Wood +0.2088
Saturday 9 August
9:30am, Qualifying Part 1 – Race 23 (10 mins)
9:50am, Qualifying Part 2 – Race 23 (10 mins)
10:20am, Qualifying Part 1 – Race 24 (10 mins)
10:40am, Qualifying Part 2 – Race 24 (10 mins)
12:45pm, Race 23 – 39 laps (120 km)
4:10pm, Race 24 – 39 laps (120 km)
Sunday 10 August
10:20am, Qualifying Part 1 – Race 25 (10 mins)
10:40am, Qualifying Part 2 – Race 25 (10 mins)
11:40am, Qualifying Part 3 – Race 25 Top Ten Shootout (30 mins)
3:15pm, Race 25 – 63 laps (200 km)
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