The series leader endured a rollercoaster weekend in Far North Queensland thanks to Triple Eight’s general lack of qualifying pace.

Brown’s side of the garage was the worst affected, the #87 qualifying 13th on Saturday and 17th on Sunday.

On Saturday he was able to recover in fine style, using the excellent tyre life of the Red Bull Camaro to charge all the way to third place.

On Sunday, however, Brown was caught up in a lap 1 clash with David Reynolds that sent his car into the wall and led to him finishing last.

Reflecting on the incident, Brown accepted full blame for the contact with Reynolds. And while last place was a points hit, Brown felt just getting to the finish was a fortunate outcome.

“It was my fault at the end of the day,” Brown told Speedcafe.

“I was focused on [Mark] Winterbottom on the right and didn’t realise that Reynolds was there. At that corner that happens a lot, you’re focusing on something else and don’t realise someone is there.

“I was quite lucky to finish, actually, because it was quite a hard hit against the wall. I thought we were out to the race, so lucky to get some points.”

The damage to Brown’s title hopes was limited by teammate and closest rival Broc Feeney finishing just seventh while Chaz Mostert was third.

That left Brown with a still healthy 78-point lead.

He admitted he was keeping tabs on Feeney and Mostert during the Sunday race, but says he doesn’t want to get bogged down in thinking about the title just yet.

“When I was out there I was I was asking where Broc and where Chaz we’re going to finish to have an idea of if it hurt the championship too bad,” he said.

“But the end of the day, it’s still early in the championship. Yes, that could end up making you lose or win it, but we’ve still got Bathurst and Sandown, all those ones to get through.”

Brown is also not expecting any issues when it comes to bouncing back in Sydney in just under a fortnight.

“It always hurts, but at the end of the day I’ve been racing long enough now, I just get over it,” he said. “It is what it is.

“I’m not I’m not too bothered, I just weather a tough day. There’s no point having one bad round and throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It’s just how it is.

“You’ve got to take the good with the bad. It’s probably a good thing that it’s halfway through the season and this is our first bad weekend.”