Brown braced for SVG/Kostecki-style battle with Wood

Will Brown felt shades of the iconic Shane van Gisbergen/Brodie Kostecki battle coming through as he mounted a challenge on Ryan Wood in Perth.

The reigning champion fell just 0.6s short of a hard-charging victory on Saturday, with Wood clinching his first Supercars win in emotional scenes.

Wood outlasted Brown, who was fitted with four tyres, with van Gisbergen and Kostecki’s battle coming to mind for the Triple Eight Race Engineering star.

In 2023, van Gisbergen and Kostecki went to war in what will go down as one of the best battles for the win Perth has seen.

Van Gisbergen won in controversial scenes, muscling past Kostecki after the latter was hit with a bad sportsmanship flag for blocking. Later, Erebus Motorsport protested the result.

“The guys did an awesome pit stop,” said Brown, who closed to within 21 points of teammate Broc Feeney in the battle for the Repco Sprint Cup, after the latter finished fourth.

“With those four tyres, we were able to jump Brodie and Chaz, and then get out there and use them to our advantage.

“I was hoping to get to the back of Woody and recreate Shane and Brodie from a few years ago, but just couldn’t get there, just ran out of tyres towards the end.

“He was doing a great job, I could see him managing it and keeping it smooth, so congratulations to Woody."

Brown started sixth, and insisted the call to take four tyres was the right one: “My car was fast, I think we did the right strategy."

The #1 Red Bull Ampol Chevrolet driver will launch from eighth for Race 15, which will start at 4:10pm local time/6:10pm AEST.

“We’ve got a good car, we didn’t quite maximise it in qualifying,” Brown said of Race 15.

“You’ve got manage it in the next race, you never know, you get into a bit of argy-bargy and you struggle from there."