Brown’s championship-winning campaign was near-perfect as he finished on the podium at every round.

However, his defence was blighted by a lack of one-lap speed that meant he was often fighting forward to scrounge podium finishes.

At the Sydney Motorsport Park season-opener, Feeney started Friday’s race from fourth. Brown was eighth.

Brown missed Saturday’s Top 10 Shootout by qualifying 13th. Feeney qualified ninth.

On Sunday, Brown beat Feeney in the second leg of qualifying, only for inconsistent conditions to flip the script and take Feeney from 10th to first and Brown from seventh to fifth.

“We were just over a tenth off in the shootout and unfortunately that was fifth, but usually that’d be further up,” Brown told Speedcafe.

“So I felt like I was closer to Broc this weekend. I got a seventh and a fifth in the top 10 twice in qualifying. We could race from there.

“One of the qualifyings wasn’t great, but it just felt like we went the wrong way.”

Brown was beaten convincingly by Feeney across all three races.

Feeney won the first and the last before an unsafe release cruelled his hopes in the second race and relegated him to sixth.

Brown was seventh in Race 1, before he was penalised for spinning his wheels while airborne during a pit stop in Race 2.

Then, in Race 3, he triggered a crash with Brodie Kostecki and Anton De Pasquale that put him to the back and got penalised for.

To top it off, he ended up at the onsite medical centre having overheated due to a cool suit failure.

“I felt like I was happy with our qualifying this weekend and very happy with our race pace,” said Brown.

“Spinning the wheels in the pits, the cool suit, the crash, double stacking, it was just a weekend of everything fucking up unfortunately. We’ll go to Melbourne and have a crack. Just go for it.”

Results: Broc Feeney vs Will Brown at Sydney 500

On the Race 3 clash, Brown said he thought it was a racing incident.

“It was a bit wet. They both pushed in and pushed a bit wide,” said Brown.

“I thought I could get up the inside, which would then be the outside for the next corner and maybe pass them, and unfortunately three cars into one corner don’t go.

“I probably should have known that, and I was the third car there, so I definitely understand why the blame was on me.

“Sorry to Anton and his crew. There was nothing deliberate and it was just a racing incident.”

The Repco Supercars Championship resumed on March 5-8 at the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix.