{"id":615152,"date":"2026-04-18T13:56:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T13:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/615152\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T13:56:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T13:56:24","slug":"will-brown-didnt-disobey-team-orders-triple-eight-team-manager-mark-dutton-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/615152\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Brown didn&#8217;t disobey team orders, Triple Eight team manager Mark Dutton says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TRIPLE Eight team manager Mark Dutton has downplayed suggestions of a late-race flashpoint between his drivers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-1292-Will-Brown\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Will Brown<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-1545-Broc-Feeney\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Broc Feeney<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Brown finished Race 11 fourth, right on the bumper of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-2748-Ryan-Wood\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ryan Wood<\/a>\u2019s Supra, with Feeney fifth.<\/p>\n<p>The latter had been the lead Red Bull Ampol Mustang in the opening stanza of the 37-lapper before being undercut by the #888, with Brown stopping two laps earlier.<\/p>\n<p>Making matters worse for Feeney, he had his second botched pitstop in as many days, meaning he could only get three fresh tyres onto his wagon rather than the planned full allocation of four.<\/p>\n<p>The Supercars broadcast revealed there had been some back-and-forth over team radio regarding a swap of positions to set Feeney free to attack Wood, but no such swap eventuated.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/superstore.v8sleuth.com.au\/products\/1-43-scale-2026-sydney-500-race-1-winner-88-ford-mustang-broc-feeney-model-pre-order?utm_source=SRBuyButton&amp;utm_medium=website\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ACD18F26EWebsite_1024x1024.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe said if he is quick enough to catch you, don\u2019t hold him up and definitely let him through, but as Broc caught up he lost a bit of the edge, which will happen automatically with a bit of dirty air,\u201d Dutton explained to media including V8 Sleuth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut also, because we did the three tyres on that car, not four, because of a pitstop issue, it wasn\u2019t as strong as it would have been if it had the four tyres.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf it had the four tyres, I\u2019m confident he would have been able to blaze through and pressure for the podium, but unfortunately that wasn\u2019t the case.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Asked if there was a specific instruction for Brown to cede position, Dutton replied: \u201cThere was, if he was there.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat we\u2019re not going to do is pull over and lose a second to let him past. You don\u2019t brake to let them pass, you just let them run the racing line.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWill didn\u2019t block him or anything like that, so Will didn\u2019t disobey any orders. The orders were if Broc comes up, let him go.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/australian-grand-prix-friday-15-of-116-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-250369\"  \/>Mark Dutton. Pic: Mark Walker<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut Broc couldn\u2019t quite get close enough and then Will\u2019s second stint pace actually improved at the end and he started coming back towards Woody.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo I was happy with that: they were working together, he just didn\u2019t quite enough to get up there and come through.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It follows a Friday shocker for Triple Eight, with Feeney 10th and Brown 17th (the latter having needed rear diffuser repairs).<\/p>\n<p>Feeney and Brown will line up sixth and 16th respectively for this afternoon\u2019s penultimate race of the Christchurch Super440, starting 2:10pm AEST (4:10pm local).<\/p>\n<p>Rick Kelly\u2019s controversial championship-winning Commodore<\/p>\n<p>IT was at the heart of one of the most controversial V8 Supercars title deciders of all-time, with Rick Kelly\u2019s victorious Toll HSV Dealer Team VZ Commodore continuing to race on in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TRIPLE Eight team manager Mark Dutton has downplayed suggestions of a late-race flashpoint between his drivers Will Brown&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":615153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-615152","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}