Triple Eight coughs it up in the chaos

Normally the benchmark team of Supercars, Triple Eight’s stumbles at Bathurst proved it is full of humans after all.

Triple Eight rolled into Bathurst with race-winning pace and, for long stretches, both Camaros looked set to decide the Great Race. By sundown, the scoreboard read sixth for Broc Feeney and Jamie Whincup, and 17th for Will Brown and Scott Pye, the kind of return that felt well short of what the cars had in hand.

The benchmark team of Supercars stumbled, and that is rare.

Feeney’s summary captured the day when asked if it was a tough day. “Yeah, it was, but at the same time, like apart from the crash, it was a pretty good day in a way.

“Literally, you just had to survive. If I did not hang the thing out of the fence, we had as good a shot as the rest of them. To come back from two and a half laps down to P6 and at one point feel like we were in a shot for the podium was pretty awesome, but just the one mistake cost our day.”

The 88 was fast in both wet and dry. Feeney said an overnight tweak transformed a shaky race car into a weapon.

“Yesterday our race car was not very good. We made a change for the warm up, and literally on my first lap out of the gate, I knew we were on for something pretty good. We had heaps of pace in the dry, and we were good in the wet once we got up to temperature. Jamie was outstanding,” he said.

At one stage early in the race, it looked like another feast for the crew with the car running one two, but things unravelled.

Brown’s day told the other half of the story. Early pace put the 1 in the fight, but the wet phase exposed the razor edge of the conditions, and a pair of errors ruined the campaign.

“Really tough day,” Brown said. “It was looking promising at the start, and then it all unravelled when it rained. As we were getting to grips with the wet conditions and pressures we were starting to get faster, and then when it really bucketed down I made a mistake and took Kai out, so sorry to him. Then I aquaplaned in Turn 2, straight into the fence.”

Brown did not hide from the cost. “I am disappointed that I made two mistakes and wrecked our day because I feel like we were on for a pretty strong one.” The result left the 1 buried in 17th, a brutal return after genuine front running pace in the dry and the early wet.

Feeney’s incident flipped the 88 from contender to chaser. The car went two and a half laps down in the repair, then clawed back onto the lead lap through timing, Safety Cars and relentless pace as visibility closed in across the top. “The end was crazy,” Feeney said. “Over the top, the fog was back to that 12 hour year where you could not see, but I was not going to say anything on the radio because we all wanted to finish it.”

For a team that prides itself on execution, Sunday’s ledger was harsh. Strategy windows opened and closed with the rain bands. The 88’s speed survived the hit, but track position did not. The 1 could not escape the double whammy of contact and aquaplane, and the wall ended any chance of using undercut or tyre offset to climb back into the lead group.

The consolation sits in the form line that now points to the Finals. “Goldie is always an awesome race,” Feeney said. “It is a home race to me. We need to go win the championship.”

Brown sang from the same sheet. “We have to reset this week and debrief this, but also build some hype going into the Finals and some positivity around the team. It is a very disappointing way to finish the day, but we know we had quite good pace in the wet.”

Triple Eight will not dwell on the what ifs for long. The cars were fast enough to win, they led when the track allowed, and they learned exactly how narrow the line is when Bathurst turns biblical. They coughed it up on Sunday, but the championship fight now offers a clean slate and a familiar target.