Brown takes blame for costly Reynolds clash

Will Brown has taken responsibility for his costly lap 1 clash with David Reynolds, which cost the championship leader valuable points.

An opening-lap incident consigned Brown to 24th and last in Sunday's race, which was won by Penrite Racing driver Matt Payne.

The #87 Red Bull Ampol Camaro sustained significant front-end damage after colliding with Reynolds on the run to Turn 4 on the first lap.

An ailing Brown crawled to the end, and with Broc Feeney seventh, saw his championship lead shrink from 141 to 78 points.

It came after Brown struggled to 17th in qualifying, which ultimately set up the mid-pack incident.

"It was really disappointing to qualify 17th, that was by far the least competitive we’ve been all year," the 26-year-old said.

"In the race I had an incident on the first lap which was my own fault. I didn’t realise Reynolds was there because I was focussing on [Mark] Winterbottom and making sure I kept a distance from him.

Brown raced from 13th to third on Saturday, extending his championship lead.

However, Sunday was an "overall" terrible day for the Queenslander, who is determined to avoid a similar fate in Sydney in two weeks' time.

“The whole day was pretty terrible to be honest. Qualifying was really hard, and we just didn’t seem to have the qualifying pace this weekend but I think our race pace was pretty good," he said.

"Overall, it was an up-and-down weekend. Our race pace was good but obviously in qualifying we have a lot of work to do.

"We’ve been fast everywhere else in qualifying but just really struggled here. It’s only a week-and-a-half until Sydney, so we have to focus on that now."