Brown on Bathurst: 'The place hates me'

Will Brown's rotten run of results at the Repco Bathurst 1000 isn't purely down to bad luck, rather a vendetta the fabled Mountain holds against him.

At least, that's what the reigning Supercars champion believes anyway.

It's crazy to think that someone with a Bathurst podium could have such a relationship with the circuit, however a look back at the Toowoomba product's Bathurst record reveals a sobering reality.

Put simply, when he has bad days, he has shocking days. Yet when he has good days, his teammates have extraordinary days.

"I think the place hates me, I'm sure a lot of drivers connect with this," Brown said on his Lucky Dogs podcast.

"I've done eight now, and only got one podium, and like 15th or worse in every other one due to it going wrong, so that's good..."

Brown only has three top 10 finishes in eight starts at Bathurst, however all of his top 10 finishes have had extenuating circumstances.

After qualifying on provisional pole in 2021, Brown's car suffered a power steering failure. In 2022, co-driver Jack Perkins was caught in the opening lap pile-up on Mountain Straight, Brown himself crashed in qualifying in 2023, and Brown and Scott Pye were simply no match for teammates Broc Feeney and Jamie Whincup.

The 27-year-old swaps out the traditional Bathurst road trip enjoyed by thousands for flying down in a private plane from Toowoomba, circling the track from above before landing at Bathurst Airport.

"I got down there, and wound the prop up, made it sound good and did a few laps around the Mountain before I got there," Brown continued.

"I used to do that just looking at it, I was trying to get the Mountain to want me to win, worshipping it or something, I don't know.

"I'm just trying to be nice to the place because it never is to me. I reckon I've got to treat it mean next time or something."

Co-host and pole sitter Brodie Kostecki cheekily added: "You should probably change what you're doing then, because it's not working."

Sunday at Bathurst initially looked as though his luck would turn, as Pye blazed through the field from 12th, with the #1 Camaro sitting in second prior to the first Safety Car behind Feeney/Whincup.

However, when the rain arrived, the the pace advantage of both Red Bull Ampol Racing Camaros disappeared, with both Feeney, then Brown making unusual errors and crashing by themselves.

Whilst Feeney would launch an epic comeback to sixth, Brown would wind up finishing two laps down in 17th.

"Today, Scott did an amazing job. The car was super fast, I got in, we drove up to second after Scott had already got us up well inside the top 10," said Brown post-race.

"That's the best car I've ever had around here in the dry, I really felt like we had a shot at winning it today if it'd stayed dry." "Unfortunately the rain came, and threw all sorts of different conditions at us, and I made a few mistakes which put us out of the race unfortunately. I ended up finishing just a few laps down. "So really sorry to my team, everyone did a fantastic job and it's tough to let everyone down, but we'll bounce back for Gold Coast for sure. I've got to wait another year to try and tame this place."

Brown maintained third in the standings entering the Elimination Final at the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500 from October 24-26, and will sit 57 points above the cut-line ahead of the opening 250km race.

Will Brown's Bathurst 1000 record