Podium for Brown at shortened Taupo Super440

Will Brown delivered two strong results across a weather-shortened ITM Taupō Super 440, claiming a second & fourth place finish to move the Red Bull Ampol Racing team to the top of the Teams' Championship standings heading into Christchurch.

Race 8 - P2

Brown qualified second for Race 8 and made an immediate impression, surging to second within the first couple of laps and latching onto the rear of race leader Brodie Kostecki. He applied relentless pressure through the middle stages but Kostecki was simply too fast to overtake. The closing laps produced some of the most exciting racing of the season, Ryan Wood closed in rapidly and launched multiple attempts around the outside at the Turn 11 hairpin. Brown stood his ground, defending hard across both the penultimate and final laps to hold on for second.

"What a Saturday we've had, what a race that first one was. Started fourth, got up to second in the first couple of laps, and then was able to get on Brodie's rear bar and stay there for the majority of it, but couldn't really do much, he was so fast. "Towards the end there we had a really good race with Woody, pretty wild, stood my ground and got the elbows out and did some of the best defending I've done to hold on to second spot. Exciting racing and exciting result for us."

Race 9 - P4

Brown backed that up with another strong qualifying session for Race 9, starting from the front row of the 200km feature. The one-lap pace that has been a hallmark of his season continued to shine, with top-four qualifying in both sessions across the weekend.

The longer race format and pit stop strategy mixed up the order in Race 9, with Brown emerging just ahead of Broc Feeney from his stop but unable to hold the position through the final stint. He crossed the line fourth, maintaining the consistency that has defined his Taupō weekend.

"We were fast in race two, but the longer race and the pit stops always mix it up, and it's always interesting to see who makes the soft tyre work better. Came out just in front of Broc from my pit stop there towards the end but he was just fast for the final stint. A podium would've been nice, had some good battles there at the front all throughout the race and really promising again for us to have been top four in both qualifying sessions and both races this weekend."

Sunday's scheduled third race was cancelled by Supercars as Cyclone Vaianu closed in on the Waikato region, with the race rescheduled to Friday in Christchurch.

Brown leaves Taupō having jumped from 13th to ninth in the Drivers' Championship, with the team now sitting top of the Teams' standings.