Ipswich Super 440: Will Brown ends drought with Race 2 win

Will Brown is officially back.

Having been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons since the last round in Perth, the Triple Eight star celebrated a change of fortune at Queensland Raceway after he emerged with a drought-breaking win in the second leg of the Saturday sprint double at the Ipswich Super 440.

After the spotlight on his form and his team’s air restrictor saga, Brown bounced back to claim his first win in 12 months to inject life into his championship campaign.

The 2024 Supercars champion prospered from two late safety cars to storm from third to the front of the field, passing championship leader Matt Payne for P2 on the first restart before overtaking Kai Allen on the second restart to clinch the lead with six laps to go.

After the thrilling battle between the frontrunners after the final safety car restart, Brown then held off his good mate Brodie Kostecki, who had won the opening sprint race, to claim his first win since the second race at Ipswich last season.

Brown’s teammate Broc Feeney finished third to give Triple Eight a double podium.

Brown’s turnaround came after Triple Eight discovered last week that the 28-year-old had been racing with an under-sized air restrictor since the start of the season, which had impacted his car’s performance.

Before the discovery, the team had already decided to shift Brown, whose form – especially in qualifying – had been under the spotlight, to its spare chassis for the Ipswich round.

Brown had admitted he questioned whether he still had it during his on-track struggles this year.

With his dad in tears in pit lane after the win, Brown celebrated wildly in his car before taking the infamous air restrictor onto the podium for the presentation and drank champagne out on it.

“Give us the same equipment and see what happens,” said an estactic Brown, who also finished third in the opening sprint race.

“I’ve just got to say what a mega race. On TV that must have looked amazing, Kai, Brodie, sorry Brodie I had to do it to you, you’ve won plenty of races this year.

“It was elbows out and that’s what racing is all about.

“Thanks to everyone at Red Bull Ampol Racing. It’s been a super tough year, obviously with the problem we had and this first weekend back a lot of people were saying we’d still run mid-pack and here we are, number one.

“I was making it happen in that race no matter what. It was awesome. I would like to thank all my friends and family back in Toowoomba that are watching and have supported me during it, this is a mega moment.

“Right now, it nearly feels bigger than the championship to be honest. The championship was amazing, but it’s been a tough old slog, even last year was a little bit tough.

“But to get that part this weekend and really step up and get a win and a podium is amazing. I’ve just got to let it sink in.”

The Toowoomba pilot earlier finished third in the first 39-lap battle to claim his first podium since the opening Taupo race in April after benefiting from a five-second time penalty to Allen, which cost the Grove young gun a spot on the dais.

Brown sits seventh in the championship standings, 559 points behind title leader Payne, who finished sixth in the second race.

Payne now holds a 110-point lead over Feeney in the title standings and is set to take out the Sprint Cup crown on Sunday.

After being undercut by Allen, Kostecki looked set to pass the Grove driver for the effective lead on lap 22 when he ran wide off the track at turn three and dropped two positions behind Brown and Payne.

Two laps later, Kostecki’s DJR teammate Rylan Gray ran off the track, forcing the first safety car and turning the race on its head.

“I’m stoked for Will, we had a good race at the end there and we banged doors,” Kostecki said.

“He’s been through hell, so it’s good to see him have a big smile on his dial.”

Earlier, Kostecki stormed to an opening race win ahead of Payne, who had secured a pair of poles for the two sprint races with a stunning qualifying performance.

Kostecki emerged with his seventh win of the season after finishing more than two seconds clear of the New Zealand championship frontrunner and Brown.

Starting second on the grid behind Payne, Kostecki got a strong launch off the line and led Payne into the opening turn before pitting for the lead for three tyres on lap 19.

The Dick Johnson Racing star then reeled in the undercutting cars of Chaz Mostert and Allen as the duo tussled before storming to a comfortable win.

The win was a welcome result for Kostecki, who has more wins than any other driver this season, after a frustrating round in Perth when he failed to finish on the podium.

“It feels fantastic. It’s only a sprint race, but it means a lot to me to win here in front of DJ (team owner Dick Johnson), which is fantastic,” Kostecki said.

“I want to thank everyone from the Shell V Power Racing team …. I’m stoked to get that one away.

“They (the team) have been working incredibly hard the whole season and obviously we had a bit of an off-round in Perth, but to bounce back today, we made a really good strategy call and doing the three tyres there buys us a tyre later on in the weekend.

“It was able to get me up to speed quicker than probably some of the other cars around me.

“Stoked to get this one away and I’ve got two more to go, so I just need to keep checking them off.”

KOSTECKI BOUNCES BACK FROM PERTH PAIN TO SURGE TO IPSWICH TRIUMPH

Ford star Brodie Kostecki stormed to an opening race win at the Ipswich 440 ahead of title leader Matt Payne, who inched closer to securing the Supercars Sprint Cup as Will Brown celebrated a drought-breaking podium.

After Payne earlier secured a pair of pole positions with a stunning qualifying performance, Kostecki emerged with his seventh win of the season after finishing more than two seconds clear of the New Zealand championship frontrunner.

After his team’s air restrictor saga, Brown finished third, claiming his first podium since the opening race in Taupo in April to turn his fortunes around, benefiting from a five-second time penalty to Payne’s Grove Racing teammate Kai Allen, which cost him a spot on the dais.

Starting second on the grid behind Payne, Kostecki got a strong launch off the line and led Payne into the opening turn before pitting for three tyres from the lead mid-way through the 39-lap race.

The Dick Johnson Racing star and former champion then reeled in the undercutting cars of Chaz Mostert and Allen as the duo tussled before storming to a comfortable win.

The win was a welcome result for Kostecki, who has more wins than any other driver this season, after a frustrating round in Perth when he failed to finish on the podium.

“It feels fantastic. It’s only a sprint race, but it means a lot to me to win here in front of DJ (team owner Dick Johnson), which is fantastic,” Kostecki said.

“I want to thank everyone from the Shell V Power Racing team …. I’m stoked to get that one away.

“They (the team) have been working incredibly hard the whole season and obviously we had a bit of an off-round in Perth, but to bounce back today, we made a really good strategy call and doing the three tyres there buys us a tyre later on in the weekend.

“It was able to get me up to speed quicker than probably some of the other cars around me.

“Stoked to get this one away and I’ve got two more to go, so I just need to keep checking them off.”

Kostecki sits fourth in the championship standings, 354 points behind Payne.

Payne’s second place extended his lead in the championship over Broc Feeney, who was fourth, to 125 points and can potentially secure the Sprint Cup crown in the next race.

The Kiwi’s result was his 17th podium of the season, underlying his incredible consistency.

“We were just struggling a little bit with the car in terms of the balance a little bit,” Payne said.

“It didn’t feel like we quite had it when the tyres started going away and we just needed a little bit more lap speed.

“Little bit annoyed but still great points here to be sitting second.

“We’re going to have to have a bit of a crack at the set-up. He (Kostecki) is fast, I knew he was going to be fast here, they test all the time.

“It’s good to give them a good run for their money, but we need to find a little bit more.”

After gearbox issues in practice on Friday, Brown celebrated his breakthrough podium after it was discovered last week he had been competing with an undersized air restrictor, which had been impacting his car’s performance.

Allen had crossed the line in third place ahead of Brown, but was bumped down to fifth after being hit with a five-second penalty for running Mostert (sixth) off the track.

“It’s awesome. There has been a lot of noise throughout the week and pressure coming into this weekend for us to find form obviously with the restrictor back to normal size,” Brown said.

“But to be one the podium feels great, we’re up against some great competitors. Brodie and Matt Payne, they have been the standouts all year, so to be back up there fighting again has been really good this weekend.

“Hopefully in the next one we can have a bit more of a crack.”

The top five cars were all Mustangs with the highest-placed Chevrolet Camaro – Team 18’s Anton De Pasquale – finishing 13th – more than 32 seconds behind the winning Ford.

Payne will start from pole for Saturday’s second sprint race ahead of Kostecki and Brown.

TRIPLE EIGHT STAR’S CURSED RUN CONTINUES AT IPSWICH

Triple Eight star Will Brown mused he was unsure “what I’ve done to deserve” his run of bad luck after his misfortune continued with more car dramas costing him critical practice time for this weekend’s Ipswich Super 440.

The Ford squad uncovered a major engine issue in Brown’s car last week, but the former series champion struck trouble again after he was limited to just two laps in the second practice session at Queensland Raceway.

As Dick Johnson Racing star Brodie Kostecki topped the times on Friday, Brown’s weekend got off to bad start when his 888 Mustang “s*** a gearbox”, forcing him back to the garage.

The latest setback for Brown came after Triple Eight’s discovery last week the Toowoomba pilot had been racing with an undersized air restrictor since the start of the season, which had been impacted his car’s performance.

Before the discovery, the team had already decided to shift Brown, whose form – especially in qualifying – had been under the spotlight, to its spare chassis this weekend.

Brown’s mechanical trouble came as his teammate Broc Feeney’s round got off to a strong start with the second fastest time behind Kostecki.

Sitting seventh in the championship standings, Brown said the lost practice time was costly for a round when he was hoping to make up ground.

“It is what it is … there is not much we can do,” Brown said after practice.

“I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve the last period. Unfortunately, I’m not sure what happened with the gearbox, that’s a very rare thing for our team.

“So, it’s unlucky. We’ve just got to try and fix it. We’ve missed out on a whole practice session which definitely hurts your weekend, but it’s part of it.”

There had been more encouraging signs for Brown in the opening practice session when he had finished sixth fastest.

“The first session felt good, the car feels good and I think we should be all right. Broc looked fast,” Brown said.

“So hopefully we can try to have a look at what they did and work from there.

“There is hope that the new restrictor is always going to make us faster no matter what. No matter where we finish this weekend, we would have been worse, so it’s a positive that we’ve got that.

“But we’ve just got to find our feet again.”

After a tough round in Perth when he failed to claim a podium, Kostecki was encouraged by his early practice pace, but said the team had to polish its execution ahead of the big-points endurance rounds and the Supercars finals.

“It’s obviously great to start off the weekend well and we’ve rolled out every single round so far this year and had really good pace aboard the No. 17,” Kostecki said.

“But trophies are for tomorrow and Sunday, so we will just go about our business and hopefully we can tune up the car a little bit more and make it a little bit nicer for race trim.

“Perth wasn’t a really good weekend for us, we just didn’t really capitalise on qualifying that well. It was a weak track for us for qualifying.

“I felt like the race car was quite fast and then obviously the Sunday we had that pit stop issue and it really put a dwell on our weekend to be honest.

“But we’ve rolled out a pretty similar car here and the car has been pretty competitive out of the gate. We just have to make sure we execute in those areas when it’s crunch time because you can’t go into finals having small errors like that can put us out of it.”

Feeney snapped a two-month podium drought with his victory in the second race in Perth and hoped to build on that form this weekend.

“It’s been a good day. It’s good to roll out on the front foot again,” Feeney said.

“I feel like it’s two rounds in a row where we’ve been competitive in practice.

“It’s going to be tight, but I’m happy to roll out feeling competitive.”

Defending Supercars champion Chaz Mostert, championship leader Matt Payne, who is in prime position to claim the Sprint Cup crown this weekend, and Team 18’s Anton De Pasquale rounded out the top five in the final practice session on Friday.

Grove Racing young gun Kai Allen topped the opening practice session ahead of Feeney and Declan Fraser.

There are two qualifying sessions and two 39-lap races for the field on Saturday.