DOWN BUT NOT OUT AFTER SYDNEY SAUNA

Will Brown sees good signs in his new Ford Mustang package despite a physically demanding Sunday race landing the 2024 Supercars champion in the medical centre.

Race 1: P7

Will rolled out in car 888 for the first time this season to finish the opening practice session seventh and in the mix for a strong result on the first day of the campaign. Qualifying eighth after a frenetic first grid-setting session was close enough to the front to contend for victory, and a strong start had him up to sixth place immediately, which he held up to the first pit stop window.

Things went wrong in the pit lane, however, with a slow service dropping Will to 15th. Though he briefly recovered to sixth on lap 19 of 26, he was demoted back to seventh before the finish, where his fightback ended.

Race 2: P14

Will sailed through the chaotic start to qualifying for Saturday’s race, but the on-track freneticism lingered into Q2 thanks to the threat of rain. Will nonetheless looked on track to make the first shootout of the year, but he exceeded track limits with his final lap, leaving him 13th and just 0.078 second short of a shot at pole position.

His race got off to a steady start but was destined to come undone after just 10 laps anyway, when a safety car triggered for a car stopped on track forced the entire field into pit lane. Still early in the 52-lap race, Will suffered badly as the second car in a double-stacked stop and rejoined the race 17th. Worse, though, was that he picked up a 15-second penalty for spinning his wheels during the service. It negated an aggressive recovery to 10th when he took his second stop on lap 30, which dropped briefly to as low as 22nd, from where 15th was all that was on offer until a post-race disqualification moved him up a place in the classification.

Race 3: P18

A hotter and more humid Sunday dawned, and Will was in sizzling form to start the day, qualifying seventh and converting that to fifth in a super tight pole shootout that saw him miss top spot by only 0.127 seconds.

He ran long in the opening stint, inheriting the lead on lap 17 before taking his first stop on lap 20, but his race was already all but done by that stage. The main event had got underway shortly after Eastern Creek had hit its top temperature of 35°C, but his cool suit lasted only 15 laps. From the moment it failed until the chequered flag 37 excruciating laps later, Will’s suit was being pumped with hot water rather than cold.

His race continued unravelling. A safety car just past half distance was timed coincidentally with the arrival of rain and heavy wind, and in the wild lap-33 restart, Will found himself in a melee with Anton de Pasquale for a spot on the podium, with contact sending both spinning off the road. Will resumed in 21st and recovered admirably to 15th despite his cool-suit issue, though a penalty for the collision with De Pasquale left him 18th in the classification.

Will was taken to the medical centre after the race for evaluation suffering symptoms of acute heat stress.

"For us it was just a weekend of what could have been. I felt like the first day we really could have gotten a good result. Unfortunately, we just had a bit of a long pit stop and that ended up meaning that we came out behind Cam (Waters) and ended up finishing in seventh. But I felt like that should have been a fourth place or something like that with the car we had and the way we were going."

"Saturday was just a tough one. We were saving tyres, really looking good. The safety car came at the wrong point for us, which meant we had to double stack. We went back to 17th from that and came back to 10th but then got a penalty for spinning the wheels in the pits. We went all the way back to 22nd and then fought back to about 15th. It was tough day on Saturday."

"Then Sunday, just everything went wrong. The cool suit failed. Thought I was going to die in the car. I can't explain the heat and how hard it made that race. I finished the race, but that's the worst I've ever felt after a drive. Obviously, I went for a hole that probably I shouldn't have at the start there. Apologies to Anton (de Pasquale) and his team; I was going for a gap that I shouldn't have gone for, looking back at it, but at the same time you need to make those moves when they are on.

Sunday was just a tough day to end a tough weekend. It really wasn’t the way we wanted to start the year, but we know we've got a fast car, so we'll push on and have a crack. It's early, and there are good signs.”