\u201cOver the last four days, unfortunately, Melbourne is one of those ones that, because there\u2019s no pitstops I think a few of the drivers out there forget that we are racing for sheep stations not on PlayStations,\u201d said Dutton.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur lads know that, they will drive accordingly, but sometimes they get caught up in things that other blokes are getting up to.\u201d<\/p>\n
A race against the clock now looms to get Feeney\u2019s car fixed before next week being shipped to New Zealand.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Race-07-Crash-EV02-26-MH6_0072-1024x576.jpg\")
Pic: Supplied\/Mark Horsburgh<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do have a quick turnaround for New Zealand and there\u2019s a lot of work to be done on Broc\u2019s car,\u201d Dutton continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do have the option of fixing that rocket, or we do have a spare car.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe team worked exceptionally hard to make sure that we did have a spare car for this time in the season should something like this happen so that we\u2019d be ready to race no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n
The spare rig was built up in time to be used in a Red Bull Ford crossover involving Daniel Ricciardo last Wednesday.<\/p>\n
On the whole, Triple Eight might\u2019ve been as fast as anyone at Sydney Motorsport Park, but that certainly wasn\u2019t the case in Melbourne where Dick Johnson<\/a> Racing\u2019s Brodie Kostecki<\/a> reigned supreme.<\/p>\n Dutton noted learning is still ongoing given the freshness of his team\u2019s Chevrolet-to-Ford switch.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the name of the game for us right now,\u201d he said<\/p>\n \u201cWe came out strong and managed to get two out of three wins at SMP but that doesn\u2019t mean that you\u2019re on top of everything. They\u2019re brand-new cars for us and there\u2019s a lot of learning to be done.<\/p>\n \u201cThe really positive thing is what we\u2019re seeing in the Ford with the new aero package, all that has come out as a very strong, strong package and car when it hits the track.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s strong enough that our main competitors are other Ford teams at the moment.<\/p>\n \u201cSo that means as the Ford homologation team, we\u2019ve done that bit right, but now we just need to work harder to beat our brothers over there (Grove Racing) and over there (DJR).\u201d<\/p>\n Next up is Taup\u014d, where eight of the nine podium placings last year went to Ford drivers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TRIPLE Eight team manager Mark Dutton has made it abundantly clear how he feels drivers get carried when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-320844","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/triple_eight_the_cars_1024x1024.jpg\"\/)
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Brown-Feeney-supplied-Albert-Park-2026-1024x576.jpg\")
Pic: Supplied<\/p>\n