{"id":804395,"date":"2026-07-16T17:36:39","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T17:36:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/804395\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T17:36:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T17:36:39","slug":"supercars-news-inside-the-perfect-storm-behind-triple-eights-20-year-low","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/804395\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercars news: Inside the \u2018perfect storm\u2019 behind Triple Eight\u2019s 20-year low"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Inside
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWill Brown on track at the Townsville 500. Image: InSyde Media <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The team is on a run of six races without a podium finish for the first time since 2006 following struggles in both Darwin and Townsville.<\/p>\n

Triple Eight\u2019s Townsville trouble came on a weekend where fellow Ford teams Tickford, Grove and Dick Johnson Racing shared the victories.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a somewhat perplexing mid-season slump for the Red Bull Ampol team, which won first-time out with its Mustangs in February.<\/p>\n

Big swings<\/p>\n

The context of Triple Eight\u2019s Townsville was an apparent strategic decision to stray outside of its known setups to explore the sensitivities of the Ford package.<\/p>\n

It was a move flagged by Broc Feeney in the immediate aftermath of Darwin, where the team had started the weekend in a hole and struggled to pull itself out.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe came here saying we\u2019re going to have a swing and test some things,\u201d Dutton explained to Speedcafe on Sunday evening in Townsville.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe said, \u2018we want to do some learning at the expense of ultimate performance if we get it wrong, so let\u2019s back ourselves to get it right\u2019. And we didn\u2019t get it right.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, even when we\u2019re learning, the goal is not to qualify 18th, but the competition is so tight up and down the lane. If you drop two percent, you\u2019re nowhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Broc<\/p>\n

Broc Feeney with engineer Martin Short. Image: InSyde Media<\/p>\n

Practice curveball<\/p>\n

Will Brown and Broc Feeney were second and fifth respectively in Friday\u2019s single practice session, before qualifying just 19th and 16th later that afternoon.<\/p>\n

Practice had been interrupted by a late red flag, which meant the field did not get to do a qualifying simulation run at the end of the session.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe red flag made it a perfect storm. Yes, everyone missed their quali sim, but for a team who\u2019s having a swing, that\u2019s terrible,\u201d said Dutton.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had decent race cars in P1\u2026 but we were caught off-guard by just how bad we would be in the first quali, because usually there\u2019s not that big a gap from our race car to quali car.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe paid a hefty penalty for not being able to get that quali sim. That put us on the back foot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Third strike<\/p>\n

Brown and Feeney drove through the pack to finish seventh and 10th respectively in Friday\u2019s opener, before again falling down in Saturday qualifying.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until Sunday that Feeney\u2019s qualifying form returned to anything like what is expected: fifth in the regular session and seventh in the Shootout.<\/p>\n

By that point Dutton said the team had gone searching in three different directions, also utilising its customer car of Jackson Walls.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re having those swings, you\u2019re not fine-tuning, and your opposition are, so there\u2019s no way you\u2019re going to be P1,\u201d said Dutton.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I was actually really happy with a P5, P7 for qualifying, because without refinement, to actually do that, we saw a step change.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one thing to say you\u2019re going to learn things, but ultimately it\u2019s only the learnings relative to everyone else that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feeney failed to be a factor in the Sunday race despite the improved qualifying, finishing in sixth place and 17 seconds from victory.<\/p>\n

Feeney frustrated by \u2018hard to drive\u2019 Triple Eight Ford<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Clutch hitting<\/p>\n

While Triple Eight\u2019s weekend of exploration in Townsville didn\u2019t produce any trophies, it could help it secure the biggest prizes later in the season.<\/p>\n

Dutton affirmed the decision to take \u201cbig swings\u201d with setup was driven by a desire to build a \u201ctoolbox\u201d of tuning solutions that work with the seemingly sensitive Mustang.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about knowing the sensitivities,\u201d said Dutton.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019ve got a problem with braking or turn-in instability or whatever it might be, what are my go-to tools? And what are the side effects?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to learn all those different things so that when the car isn\u2019t in the sweet spot, you know what to throw in and what it will do.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re getting through weekends without having that toolbox at your disposal, you run a risk of getting to Finals, or Bathurst, and having a problem and not knowing the best tool for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Out of the park<\/p>\n

Triple Eight boss Jamie Whincup was highly critical of Walkinshaw TWG\u2019s claim it had used the regular season as testing for the Finals last year.<\/p>\n

But the combination of its Ford switch and the format has both required and allowed Triple Eight to take a similar route.<\/p>\n

\u201cBig swings like [Townsville] are made possible by the format. In years gone by you couldn\u2019t risk a P18 quali,\u201d Dutton added.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still painful. People think that when Triple Eight has a swing, we hit it out of the ball park every time. But that\u2019s not the reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Triple Eight remains second in the teams\u2019 championship behind Grove Racing after Townsville, while Feeney slipped to second behind Matt Payne in the drivers\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Will Brown on track at the Townsville 500. Image: InSyde Media The team is on a run of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":804396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14593,43,44,12357,41,39,42,40,7500,14594],"class_list":["post-804395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-broc-feeney","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-slot1","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-triple-eight","tag-will-brown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804395","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=804395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/804396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}