Broc Feeney stuns with New Zealand GP pole on single-seater debut

Photo: Bruce Jenkins

Australian Supercars star Broc Feeney stunned by taking pole for the New Zealand Grand Prix in his debut single-seater qualifying session.

Formula Regional Oceania used an adapted qualifying format at Highlands Motorsport Park, with the session split into three segments. The first, lasting 15 minutes, decided the grid for race one of the season finale.

The top 13 drivers progressed to Q2, lasting 10 minutes and deciding ninth to 13th place on the grand prix grid, then the top eight from Q2 made it to Q3. That ran for 12 minutes, and settled pole for the grand prix-awarding third and final race of the weekend.

MTEC Motorsport’s Zack Scoular was quickest at first in Q1, leading M2 Competition’s Nikita Johnson and Arvid Lindblad. However the two title contenders’ team did not have the pace to fight for pole, and others came to the fore.

Feeney went second fastest with 10 minutes to go, then Lindblad briefly was quickest before team-mates Sebastian Manson and Matias Zagazeta beat him. Enzo Yeh bettered Zagazeta to make it an M2 lockout of the top six, but it did not last even though Johnson and then Lindblad lowered the pace on their next laps.

With seven-and-a-half minutes remaining, Feeney’s Supercars team-mate Will Brown went to the top. Shin moved up to second a minute later, only for MTEC’s Patrick Heuzenroeder and Lindblad to move ahead.

A nail struck Heuzenroeder’s rear-left tyre and he pitted with several minutes left, but remained on top by 0.098 seconds over Lindblad. Scoular was fifth, ahead of Zagazeta, MTEC’s Feeney and Shawn Rashid, and Johnson.

Laptime deletions due to track limits abuse mixed the order behind, and among the eliminated was Yeh. He suffered a car-wrecking crash in FP2 on Friday, and repairs were still ongoing during FP3.

Lindblad opted for used tyres in Q2, while Giles’ Brown sought an advantage on fresh rubber. Heading out in clean air, as Feeney and Heuzenroeder did, proved more beneficial.

Brown led that pair halfway through Q2, with a rotation of drivers in fourth. Heuzenroeder improved to second with four minutes to go, then Lindblad beat him 40s later.

On his next lap Heuzenroeder was able to successfully respond, and Lindblad was briefly demoted to fourth by Rashid. This time Brown was able to end his run early as the pace-setter, and after the chequered flag improvements put Scoular and Feeney in fifth and sixth. Johnson was seventh, and front wing damage consigned Zagazeta to 12th.

Rashid was fastest early in Q3, and was toppled by Feeney who again optimised clean air. He locked up but earned pole with a 1m29.176s set seven minutes in, then improved to 1m29.032s to put 0.154s between himself and Brown.

Nobody improved late on, and 0.04s split second and points leader Lindblad in fifth. Heuzenroeder mirrored Feeney as he qualified third, 0.006s ahead of Scoular.

“My heart rate’s about 300bpm right now. That was awesome,” said Feeney after clinching pole.

“Pretty bloody awesome,” he reiterated. “I’m absolutely chuffed, I can’t believe it.”

Feeney added it “was bloody hard” as “I nearly had about 500 crashes in that session”, and that “I need to learn how to do a start in these next two [races] so I can smoke Will off the line”.

Qualifying results