Supercars boss Craig Baird has flagged the need for the category to stamp out the ‘flick-spin’ that Broc Feeney performed before his crash with Cooper Murray and Zach Bates in Melbourne. But he’s revealed the Triple Eight driver won’t face sanctions because he didn’t technically break any rules.
Through no fault of his own, Feeney was spun around on the opening corner of Sunday’s race during the Australian Grand Prix. But instead of remaining stationary and waiting for the rest of the field to pass, Feeney performed a dangerous flick-spin in front of oncoming traffic.
Broc Feeney was involved in a three-car collision after his flick-spin manoeuvre. Image: AAP
Feeney has stated he was simply trying to get off the track and out of the way, but his manoeuvre put him right in the path of Murray, who crashed into Feeney at high speed. Bates ran up the back of Murray and they all suffered major damage to their cars.
Thankfully none of the drivers were hurt, but fans were left questioning whether Feeney might face sanctions from Supercars for the flick-spin. Speaking to Speedcafe on Wednesday, Supercars driving standards advisor Baird said there won’t be any retrospective punishment for Feeney.
Broc Feeney’s spin put himself right in the path of Cooper Murray. Image: Fox Sports
Broc Feeney’s car suffered major damage.
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However Baird said he’ll be in contact with all the teams to discourage the ‘flick-spin’ that Feeney performed. “I was always taught, clutch in, brake and try and be as stationary as you can, as soon as you can,” he said. “But the new thing of keeping the engine going is to just bury the throttle.
“It’s not a breach of a rule, and I’ll be very clear on that, but it’s something we need to discuss in the drivers’ briefing, especially for a Turn 1, Lap 1 incident. To create a curtain with the smoke, that magnified our problem and probably created a lot more damage than what we needed.
“I’m not holding Broc directly accountable…but it’s something that, as a category, we need to discuss. You can’t just create a new rule around it, but you can have the discussion and maybe discuss some better options. That might trigger people to do things slightly different.”
Broc Feeney defends spin in face of criticism
In a column for Supercars.com.au, Craig Lowndes said he would have stayed stationary instead of trying to spin around. Murray and Chaz Mostert were also critical of Feeney’s actions, but Feeney reckons he was only attempting to remove himself from harm’s way.
“In that situation, I feel like whatever you do is nearly going to be wrong,” he said. “I just tried spinning it up to spin back out of the way.
“Ideally I was trying to get off the track, which I ended up a little bit further off, but some guys went through the grass and hit me. Sitting in the middle of the track with 15 cars coming at you is not that fun, so I just tried doing what I could to get out of the way. I would have been pretty lucky to survive that one I think.”