Broc Feeney, driver of the #88 Red Bull Ampol Racing car and Gold Coast local, gives an in depth preview of the upcoming Gold Coast 500 at his home circuit for the first round of the Supercars Finals.
First round of the Finals, is the priority in winning races or making sure you’re in the seven for Sandown?
It’s about both really.
I mean, 100% the goal is to make sure that we’re in the best position come Sandown. Ideally, you want a lead going into Sandown in the points and the best way to do that is to win a race. If you win the first race on Saturday at the Gold Coast, it’s a guaranteed spot into the semifinals and then you know you’ll be there.
So, without a doubt as a team we want to go and win races this weekend and we want to make sure that we’re in the best possible position with both cars come Sandown.
Coming from Bathurst, how do you set the car up differently for the Gold Coast which is now a dedicated street circuit?
The Gold Coast is completely different to the last two tracks that we’ve been to, the Enduros at The Bend and Bathurst, which are somewhat outliers. They probably relate a little bit to the Melbourne Grand Prix round where it’s super-fast and flowing, high speed. The Gold Coast… super bumpy, you’re literally flying over curbs, it’s a very stop start track.
So, there’s a big difference between Bathurst and Gold Coast in terms of how we set the car up and approach the weekend. I feel like the majority of the year probably relates a little bit more to this slower speed track type. So, we’ve got confidence that our cars are going to be in a good spot come roll out on the Gold Coast.
What does the change to Beach Chicane with the installation of tyre bundles mean for how you approach that part of the lap, and the lap time itself?
It’s certainly changed and it’s a big change from last year. They’ve added a tyre bundle two metres in from the white line, so you can pretty much fit a car’s width over the curb. Last year we were literally turning before the corner and using the curb as a jump to fly through the corner. Was it safe?… probably not.
I think it looked great on TV and so forth, but if something went wrong for a driver, it would’ve been a really big crash.
So, I understand the changes. But there does come risk with tyre bundles that if you make a mistake and you can’t bail out in time, there’s a chance that you do collect one – and we’ve seen the damage that can do to a car. But until we get there and drive, it’s actually quite hard to visualise what we’re going to do as drivers. Does it change the car setup? Probably not too much.
We’re still going to use it, we’re still going use a lot of the curb, we probably just won’t be flying as much this year.
And what does weather on the Gold Coast do to qualifying and the race with rain expected in the lead up?
I think this week looks really poor on the forecast, and as a Gold Coast local it’s not a surprise – we’ve had some pretty average weather this year. But we’re looking at a lot of rain; it’s up to forty millimetres on Thursday they think.
So, the wet weather on a street track makes it even more challenging than even what we saw at Tailem Bend just due to the painted lines, the flooding on the track and so forth.
So, there are plenty of challenges that come with the rain and a street circuit. The biggest thing, whether it’s dry or wet here on the Gold Coast, you need to qualify up the front. It’s not that you want to qualify well, you need to qualify well and up the front. In the wet vision is a huge thing, especially around a street circuit so you don’t want to be stuck behind anyone to be honest.
Then it’s a hard track to pass on. There are a few good opportunities, but it is a difficult track to pass on, especially with the re-sealing at turn four which will take away a bit of the tyre degradation. There’s not much tire deg now so that again changes the way the race goes and how you get guys on track. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens.
*Quotes not for republishing