On one-lap pace, Feeney was Cameron Waters’ closest rival. The pair lined up side-by-side on the front row in all three races.
While Waters swept the weekend’s qualifying sessions and races, Feeney was left with a 14-2-5 results sheet.
Race 1 was blighted by a puncture for which he took the blame. Race 2 saw Feeney come up 0.03s short of victory in a near photo finish.
Then Race 3 saw him lose a place to Chaz Mostert in a bizarre incident with Cooper Murray before slipping another spot in his battle with Brodie Kostecki when the heavens opened.
The only consolation for Feeney was outright car speed, which Tander and Skaife said would put the 22-year-old in good stead for the Melbourne SuperSprint.
“If there was a car all weekend that was genuinely able to take it to Cam Waters, it was Broc Feeney I think,” said Skaife on Supercars Trackside.
“So when you look at the way he’s qualified, he was on the front row of the grid each time, there were a couple of times during the races where he absolutely had the same pace as Cam, he was right up there and in contention.
“There were just a few things that didn’t go his way. If you actually had to do an appraisal and say — in terms of form, who from this weekend had the right car speed or a car speed factor that was good enough to be there, it was Broc Feeney.”
Tander said Feeney would be “frustrated” in the immediate aftermath of the race weekend but would quickly have to turn his attention.
Supercars will return to the Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit on March 13-16 for four days of racing at the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix.
What consolation Feeney can take is that he’s as quick as Waters, something perhaps Will Brown couldn’t say leaving Sydney despite being second in the standings, three places ahead of Feeney.
“Yes, there’ll be massive amounts of frustration right now because Mark is 100 percent right — He had a car that was fast enough,” said Tander.
“He had a car that was fast enough to win [on Saturday] night. It didn’t roll his way.
“So when you have a race like he did [on Sunday] where nothing went your way again, you’re like ‘Man, what’s going on? What have I got to do? I know I’ve got the car, I know I’ve got the team, it’s just not rolling my way’.
“But you can’t carry that with you. As soon as you do that, it affects your next performance.
“Broc is going to be disappointed, he’s going to be frustrated, he’s going to be angry, he’s going to feel like he should be in the top two of the championship, but it’s round one of 13 weekends of racing.
“Be happy that you got some points, be happy that you know you’ve got a fast car, and go execute at the grand prix.”
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