Last-gasp flyer puts Brown on top in Sydney testing
Will Brown tops the Destination NSW Sydney Test Day with the last lap of the day
Brown puts four tenths of a second on the field in dominant display
Three red flags on Wednesday afternoon, headlined by fire for James Golding
Reigning Supercars champion Will Brown has set the pace in the afternoon session at the Destination NSW Sydney Test Day, which was headlined by a scary fire for James Golding.
The Triple Eight Race Engineering driver put his #1 Red Bull Ampol Chevrolet Camaro on top of the timesheets after the chequered flag flew, with what was the fastest lap of the day.
Brown, who is embarking on his championship defence, ended up just 0.4079s ahead of Ford rivals Ryan Wood and Cam Waters after a busy afternoon session.
There was a flurry of late times amid Wood's initial flyer, with Nick Percat jumping to fourth, Richie Stanaway to seventh, Brown to fourth, and Jack Le Brocq to fourth. Waters then powered from 13th to second with 90 seconds remaining, but fell 0.0201s short of Wood.
However, Brown put a big margin on the field with his 1:30.1027, with the top 18 drivers covered by 0.9s.
"Good start to the season ending up first for the end of the day, especially with number one on for the first time, but it wasn't that easy of a day to be honest," Brown said.
"It's quite hard around here. We don't have a lot of tires. We seemed out of sync to a few cars, so felt pretty stressed throughout the day with our pace. But, we seemed to be fast at the end.
"I'm feeling positive after that last session. I think we've got good green tyre pace. It's just working out what the new tyre's going to do over a race run. Biggest thing is about qualifying well always. So hopefully we can do that.
"But there's going to be a lot of fast guys this weekend, and I'm looking forward to racing at night, looking forward to getting into the season. Hopefully there's a big crowd and hopefully it's an exciting weekend."
Brown's Red Bull Ampol Racing teammate Broc Feeney ended Session 2 in fourth, ahead of Brad Jones Racing duo Andre Heimgartner and Bryce Fullwood.
Cars #8 and #14 weren't the only BJR Camaros in the top 10, with Jaxon Evans taking the #12 SCT Logistics entry into the top 10 late in ninth place.
Cameron Hill set an impressive mark on his first lap in the session, which was good enough to see the Canberran remain seventh at the close, with former teammate Jack Le Brocq behind in eighth.
Behind Evans, Chaz Mostert rounded out the top 10 for the afternoon, with both Walkinshaw Andretti United Mustang's made the top 10 in a strong start to their season.
The biggest headline of the afternoon session belonged to James Golding, with the Victorian walking away from a scary fire. Golding managed to bring his car back to pit lane, where the flames were quickly put out.
Golding's was the second of three red flags in an interrupted afternoon of testing, with the other two red flags called for separate clean ups.
The first red flag was called to clear some rocks off the racing surface, whilst the final red flag was called to facilitate for a comprehensive clean up of the fire retardant left in pit lane after the Golding fire.
After Wednesday's Destination NSW Sydney Test Day, Supercars will return to Sydney Motorsport Park for the opening race of what is set to be the most action-packed season in Supercars history.
Race 1 takes place on Friday night, with Race 2 on Saturday night and Race 3 on Sunday afternoon. Tickets for the February 21-23 event are on sale now.
