Why Brown's get out of jail free card won't work from here

The prospect of the last two Supercars champions not fighting for the title in Adelaide is surging into view. We’ve lost Brodie Kostecki. Now, heading to Sandown, Will Brown is in the drop zone.

At the start of the year, Supercars.com predicted that a top four Sprint Cup finisher won’t make the final four in Adelaide. The top four after Ipswich was Broc Feeney, Matt Payne, Brown and Cam Waters. After the first Finals round, Chaz Mostert forced his way in. Who dropped out?

You get the picture.

The Finals has shaken up the pecking order, and finishing the Sprint Cup in the top four doesn't guarantee anything beyond bonus points for the winner.

However, scraping in top fours to accrue points and remain in mathematical contention doesn't work anymore, either. In The Finals, you must perform when it matters, or risk elimination. On current form, Brown won't reach Adelaide.

The reigning champ's season has been a head-scratcher. His qualifying performance has been sub-par, but his race pace has been elite. Once you pair them together, and it makes sense as to why he only has two wins.

Brown is ranked No.1 for positions gained in the races this year. Such has been his prowess in races this season, that his 2025 gain is even better than his championship-winning campaign.

On paper, the points reset has brought Brown closer to runaway teammate Broc Feeney, given Feeney was 355 points up the road after Ipswich. That’s a win, right? Not after the Gold Coast.

While Feeney is 84 points ahead of Brown for the Semi Final, Brown’s battle isn’t for first — it’s making it to the Grand Final in the first place. Seven into four won’t go, and as it stands, Brown is one of three drivers on the outside looking in.

Brown's get out of jail free card of brilliant race pace may only get him so far, should he have to fight back again at Sandown. It’s at a point now where he must out-qualify the likes of Payne, Waters and Mostert in order to reach Adelaide.

Mostert entered the Gold Coast ranked 10th in qualifying. His Gold Coast average start was 3.5, helping him convert his supreme race pace into wins. Feeney's average was 1.5, Waters' 5.0, and Payne 6.0. Brown? 14.0.

In The Finals, the best way to make the next round is to win. Brown started 10th and 18th for the two Gold Coast races. Needless to say, winning was a tall order from there, as strongly as he raced.

Of the 10 drivers who reached The Finals, three drivers — Mostert, Kai Allen and Thomas Randle — moved forward. Four drivers lost ground. Payne and Brown moved down as Mostert jumped up. Anton De Pasquale and Kostecki, meanwhile, dropped out.

Brown and his team are acutely aware of the hiccups, team boss Jamie Whincup even bordering on giving his driver a serve on the broadcast, saying after his Sunday crash: "Will Brown couldn't get into the zone from a sports performance point of view.”

2015 champion Mark Winterbottom was adamant Brown can do the job, as evidenced by the fast first sector in the Saturday Shootout. However, the crash that followed was a sign of the pressure.

"If you qualify second to Broc, you feel like you've failed, so it puts you under pressure. What we saw on Saturday, Brown's got the ability to do it. That first sector, he was up," Winterbottom said in Supercars' new The Run Home podcast.

"It's not that safety margin he used to have. You go through the back chicane, if he doesn't nail it, Broc's going to jump him, get priority, all those sort of factors that flow on.

"Will's very fast... it would be so much easier for him if he qualifies at the front. He's had a very tough year coming through. He's survived every time, which has been good for him. He's just got to beat Broc... I don't know how he does it. That's where he needs to dig deep."

Now in the drop zone, the only way for Brown to reach Adelaide is to move forward. There can be no more mistakes in qualifying, because he rarely makes them in the race.

"Dropped a few points in the championship but excited to be there, excited to be going to Sandown where obviously we were fast and did well last year,” Brown said post-Gold Coast.

"So we'll go back to the workshop, sit down, go through this weekend and debrief, get ready for the next one and hopefully come out, qualify well, race well.

"Massive effort from the whole team this weekend especially the guys on my car, we were in some situations and they got us out of it, gave me a car to drive, thankful to the team and good to get the result for them, good to stay in the Finals hunt."

For Brown, the first step to making Adelaide is clear — make it stick in qualifying. He’s now on his third stretch of five races without a podium this season. He has qualified on the front row once — just once — in his last 16 attempts, dating back to June.

For what it's worth, Brown does have one thing over his rivals — he can say he won the last race there...

The views in this article do not necessarily express the opinions of Supercars, teams or drivers.