Supercars’ smiling assassin Will Brown ‘joking around’ to 2024 Championship

Drafted in to replace one of Supercars’ all-time greats, Will Brown has met expectations with a calmness that has him on the brink of greatness.

Will Brown is on the brink of being crowned Supercars champion for 2024.

By Sunday afternoon Will Brown could be the 2024 Supercars champion.

Boasting a 204-point lead over teammate Broc Feeney entering the penultimate round at Surfers Paradise, the 26 year old from Toowoomba is in the box seat to clinch his maiden series title.

Brown has led the championship since the series left Albert Park in late-March and could finally put the title fight to bed by gapping Feeney and third-placed Chaz Mostert by 90 points over the two races this weekend.

Drafted in to replace one of Supercars’ all-time greats Shane van Gisbergen at Triple Eight Race Engineering this year, Brown has done everything asked of him to this point.

The pressure of expectation was and is enormous, but you wouldn’t know it just by looking at him.

“Nothing has changed – Will certainly hasn’t changed even at this time of the year,” Feeney said this week of his teammate and title rival.

“He’s still joking around and doing his usual sort of stuff.”

Supercars’ smiling assassin has been a picture of calm this week – and all year, it must be said – despite being on the cusp of achieving his dream.

How has he managed to ignore the pressure for so long?

“Talking a lot of you know what,” jokes Brown.

Brown with his Red Bull Ampol team Racing at Sandown. Picture: Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images

“The thing for myself is, I don’t really like sitting in the car for 10 minutes before (a race) like some guys do. For me, that’s when I start thinking about it all and you can start to feel the pressure. I’d rather have fun with the boys, crack some jokes and not get too caught up in the moment.

“It’s a massive thing to win the Supercars championship, but everyone goes about it in their own way. Some people need their alone time before a race and really get into the mindset of going out there, but for me it’s about staying relaxed and that’s generally when I do the best job.

“I just enjoy having fun with the team, with friends and going racing.”

While the rest of the world has spent the past week running the numbers to see if, how and when Brown can clinch the title, the man himself believes it is unlikely he leaves the Surfers Paradise street circuit as champion.

“The honest truth is the reason the championship is so close is because Broc, Chaz and myself have all been very consistent. So I would be surprised if in a weekend I could put 90 points over both of them. I’m not even thinking about that yet.

“If we can come out of this weekend extending (the lead in) the championship that would be great, but I’m just trying to win as usual.”

The aforementioned math is easy reading for Brown’s side of the Triple Eight garage.

Even if Feeney were to win all four of the remaining races, Brown would need to only average a sixth-place finish to take the title.

But he believes it would be dangerous to take the foot off the gas and play it “safe”.

“For me it’s business as usual. Obviously we are approaching D-Day in the championship but I still want to win races.

“We’ve only had four race wins this year – a great amount of podiums, but there’s still some races I believe I can win over the next two rounds. I’m not going out there to conserve, I’ll be going out there to win and if I can do that, then I can win the championship.

Brown has exceeded all expectations this season. Picture: Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images

“Often trying to be safe can cause more dramas. We’ve seen that in previous years and in a lot of other championships – when you try to be conservative it can leave you deeper in the field and in more s***, so you just have to go out there and race.

“We’ve had a really solid year and stayed out of all the mess so far. This weekend it’s all about qualifying strongly and doing what we’ve done the rest of the year. That’s easy to say and hard to do sometimes, but that’s the plan.”

Brown’s consistency has been the reason for his success. He stood on the podium in 12 of the first 13 races of the season and has finished outside the top 10 just once.

But there remains a major hurdle. On paper, Gold Coast might be Brown’s worst-performed track. In seven starts his highest finish is eighth and last year he left the Glitter Strip with two 11th-place finishes to his name.

Feeney has also historically struggled on the Surfers Paradise streets, while Mostert is a two-time winner (2017-18) but not since the race changed to a single-driver format.

As far as Brown is concerned, history is irrelevant.

“Bathurst wasn’t a great hunting ground for me in previous years and we got third there this year,” he says.

“I have actually had a good result at Gold Coast – I got a fifth place, but then got a five-second penalty due to kerb hops, so I’m confident heading in.

“I had good pace here last year but a few dramas (gearbox issue and top 10 shootout shunt) so I think we can turn it around and have a really good result here.”

Originally published as Supercars’ smiling assassin Will Brown ‘joking around’ to 2024 Championship