Most cattle in northern Australia have a high Bos indicus (usually Brahman) content as they perform better in the harsh conditions than Bos taurus cattle. However, Brahmans from northern Australia often suffer price discrimination when they are sent to Australian domestic markets as they are regarded as having less tender meat than Bos taurus. Crossbreeding with Senepol bulls has been found to be a way of producing offspring from northern Australian herds that have higher growth rates and more tender meat than Brahmans. However there is some resistance to adoption of crossbreeding as there are concerns that crossbreds are discriminated against in the Indonesian live export market (which is a major destination for young northern Australian cattle) due to the perception that they do not perform as well as high grade Brahmans in the tropical environment. Therefore a study was conducted to compare the growth of Brahman (BRAH) and F₁ Senepol × Brahman (F₁ SEN) steers in an Indonesian feedlot. F₁ SEN (n = 54) and BRAH (n = 32) steers were exported from Darwin (Northern Territory, Australia) to Indonesia through the normal live export process and fed for 121 d in a commercial feedlot near Lampung (Sumatra, Indonesia). The average weights of the genotypes at feedlot induction were 312.3 kg (F₁ SEN) and 308.5 kg (BRAH). All the steers were fed in the same pen and received the normal feedlot management and rations. Their growth was studied and the average daily gain over the feeding period was 0.17 kg/d higher (P < 0.001) in the F₁ SEN compared with BRAH (1.71 vs. 1.54 kg/d). As a result the F₁ SEN put on 21.6 kg more weight (P = 0.002) over the feeding period. There was no significant difference between the genotypes in average fat depth at the P8 site at the end of the feeding period (F₁ SEN = 10.5 mm, BRAH = 10.6 mm) despite the F₁ SEN being 25.4 kg heavier on average. This study found that that F₁ SEN steers performed better than BRAH in an Indonesian feedlot, and so the results should allow live export cattle buyers to purchase these types of animals (Brahman × tropically adapted Bos taurus) with confidence that Indonesian feedlotters will be happy with their performance.