The Triple Eight Race Engineering duo weren’t the only ones to struggle, but their session was characterised by off-track excursions.
Feeney’s best lap came at the back end of the 30-minute session after a slew of changes were made to his #88 Chevrolet Camaro.
Plenty of work was also done to the sister #1 car, which at one point had Brown shaking his head after he bowled a wide at the high-speed Turn 9 where Feeney went off too.
Feeney wound up eighth while Brown was 10th in a session red-flagged late by Ryan Wood’s incident.
Speaking between sessions, Triple Eight engineer Martin Short said the team began the day with its race-winning 2024 set-up and made adjustments from there.
“I think this track was really difficult last year just with the degradation,” Short explained on Fox Sports’ coverage.
“We’ve learnt a lot from where we were last year. We went back to last year’s car because we were strong in race two but now we’re trying to focus on what we’ve implemented over the last year and a bit and try and develop that.”
For Feeney, the session was a bit of a dog’s breakfast.
Drivers were given new tyres, offering a rare opportunity to get an accurate assessment of pace early on.
He noted the abrasive track surface, which changes several times over the course of the lap.
“Your first lap out of the box is nearly your fastest for the whole practice session,” said Feeney.
“We then mucked around a little bit and we dropped a bit of time. Then we set our fastest time at the back end of that session.
“This track is just so hard. The deg is super high. Every corner has got a different surface so you’ve got a different car balance at every corner around here. It’s super challenging.
“It’s a lot of fun. Us drivers, we’ve gone from two fantastically built circuits and now we come here and it’s such a challenge. Obviously we’re changing stuff but it’s a hard one to master, that’s for sure.”
Asked by TV pundit Mark Larkham whether the cars were tough to tame, Feeney agreed.
“They’re pretty hard to drive around here and the short, sharp corners all lead into another,” he said.
“It’s hard. The track surface is degging the tyres a lot and you’re trying to learn.
“It’s a lot off feel, it’s not so much off lap time here. I felt like we made some really good changes in that session. I’m really happy with the direction we’ve gone.”
Practice 2 gets underway at 12:30pm AEST.
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