Brown makes blunt championship admission after wild Friday
Will Brown's qualifying slump came back to bite him in Race 32
Brown spun by Thomas Randle on opening lap, yet recovered to ninth
Reigning champion concedes he must win today to keep title hopes alive
Reigning Supercars champion Will Brown has admitted that today is a make or break day in his quest to claim back-to-back championships.
The admission comes after a mixed Friday at the bp Adelaide Grand Final, that provided something of a snapshot of his entire Repco Supercars Finals Series to date.
Time after time, Brown has gotten away with poor qualifying results through the Finals Series, dragging himself out of jail in all four races across the Gold Coast and Sandown.
However, after qualifying down in 12th, despite putting together what he felt was a good lap in Boost Mobile Qualifying, it appeared as though he had it all to do again.
Only, this time with just 100km to charge through the field as opposed to 250km, it would be a tall order to mount a charge to the podium.
"Disappointing day, really disappointing day today," Brown said.
"Obviously terrible qualifying again, it just doesn't let you start the race the way you want to and puts you on the back foot straight away. When we're back in the pack there's risk of getting caught up and that's what happened."
Luck looked as though it ran out when Brown was tagged into a spin on the opening lap by Thomas Randle at Turn 9.
Tumbling down to a distant last, Brown then launched a trademark comeback drive, getting to the back of Randle, who was ninth but with a 15 second penalty over his head for the discretion, on Lap 19.
On Lap 20, Randle aquaplaned on the entry to Turn 8, and thumped the concrete. Brown's luck turned for the better, as he was able to avoid the Tickford Mustang as it bounced back towards the racing line.
Brown maintained ninth when the race was declared 10 laps short of it's scheduled 32-lap distance, having gained 16 positions in 19 laps of green flag running.
Having entered 35 points off points leader and teammate Broc Feeney, Brown has now slipped to be 48 points behind the Repco Sprint Cup winner with 250 points on offer over the final two races.
His current predicament means that he needs a big result to re-establish his title credentials, with both Feeney and Chaz Mostert stealing a slight march over Brown and Kai Allen, who is now just five points behind Brown.
"Got turned around on the first lap, unfortunate even in the wet, but then we had to fight our way back after that," Brown said.
"Got up towards the top ten and with some penalties we finish ninth I think for the day.
"Still third in the standings but it's tight. Tomorrow we need to go again, qualify well, we keep saying it but it's time now to do it. Probably need to win tomorrow to stay in it so that's what we need to go out and do."
Today's action starts with Boost Mobile Qualifying at 10:05am local time/10:35am AEDT, followed by a Boost Mobile Top Ten Shootout at 12:35pm local/1:05pm AEDT, before the 78-lap Race 33 at 3:20pm local/3:50pm AEDT.
