Red Bull Ampol Racing’s Broc Feeney and Jamie Whincup have held on to win the Penrite Oil Sandown 500 after a late Safety Car period energised the first endurance race of the Gen3 era.
The pairing led the majority of the latest Repco Supercars Championship round at the Sandown Circuit, Melbourne, with Whincup twice taking the lead from the #9 Coca-Cola Camaro of Will Brown and Jack Perkins before the driver changes.
In doing so, Feeney became the youngest Sandown 500 winner, and the youngest winner of a championship race at Sandown. For Whincup, it was his sixth Sandown victory.
“Today was awesome, there’s no other way to describe that feeling,” commented Feeny. “It was pretty special to win today and under the circumstances at the end was very tough.
“The circumstances at the end of the race with the safety car made it an exciting end to the race and an even better way to win the race. I tried to use the lap up to get a bit of a jump on the restart, and Brodie (Kostecki) has been fast all weekend, but to hang on makes it even more special.”
Series leader Brodie Kostecki (#99 Coca-Cola Camaro) raced to second with co-driver David Russell, with a late error by Brown handing third to Shane van Gisbergen and Richie Stanaway (#97 Red Bull Ampol Camaro).
“We had a good race today,” said van Gisbergen. “I thought our car setup could have been a little bit better, but overall, it was pretty good. Richie (Stanaway) did a good job, and we probably missed the safety car call a bit – we could have made it in so we didn’t have to double stack which hurt us a bit.
“After that, all the good work Richie did during the race he had to do again. Once I got in, I came out in a pretty good spot, and every time Andrew (Edwards, #97 race engineer) dropped the right amount of fuel in and I came out in clean air and was able to do my thing, but I didn’t quite have enough at the end.”
Kostecki will carry an extended 155-point lead over van Gisbergen to Bathurst, with Feeney 204 points down. Brown is now 294-points behind his teammate, with Triple Eight slashing Erebus’ teams’ championship lead to 65-points.
The 2023 Repco Supercars Championship will continue at with the 60th anniversary running of the Repco Bathurst 1000 on October 5-8.
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