Will Brown relieved to score points after battling ‘drift car’ in final stages

Erebus Motorsport’s Will Brown says his Holden Commodore ‘felt more like a drift car’ in the closing stages of Race 1 at Sydney Motorsport Park as tyre troubles cost him a podium finish.

Brown started fifth on the grid and made a sensational getaway off the line to catapult past both Brad Jones Racing’s Andre Heimgartner and the Cool Drive Ford of Tim Slade to run third early on.

He kept pace with the frontrunners during the opening stint despite falling behind Heimgartner, who started on the quicker supersoft tyres, and found himself in the lead after the final pit-stops.

However, Brown was unable to keep up with the leading pace on worn soft tyres, and was bundled all the way down to seven at the flag.

Speaking to Fox Sports at the end of the race, Brown was left to rue an early first stint which delivered short-term reward but ultimately long-term pain.

“In the first stint, I think we went a little bit early, we thought we’d try and get on the supersofts early,” said Brown.

“But then trying to do 35 laps, 36 laps on the softs, it just tore it off in the last 10 laps.

“I was trying everything to hang on out there but you’re just like a drift car so it was hard towards the end.”

Despite missing out on a potential podium, Brown was still pleased with the start of the new season, having endured a difficult start to his 2021 campaign, where he achieved a best result of 14th in the second of three races at Bathurst.

Brown also had to battle a malfunctioning coolbox in his car, which made temperatures soar in the closing stages too.

“Everything got a bit hot towards the end there, we’re trying out a new coolbox but it didn’t feed any cool air inside the helmet,” Brown said.

“So, it wasn’t that much fun in the final laps, getting attacked from every angle.

“But seventh is a good result, last year we were nowhere here so I’m pretty happy with that.”