Brown's brutally honest take on uphill title battle

After finishing second in the 2025 Repco Supercars Championship, Will Brown has admitted that he underestimated the task of achieving a come-from-behind title victory.

Having fought his way out of the elimination zone at the Penrite Oil Sandown 500, Brown entered the bp Adelaide Grand Final as the third seed, 35 points behind teammate and points leader Broc Feeney.

Whilst by no means was it impossible to mount a championship challenge, it meant that the #1 Red Bull Ampol Racing Camaro had to be perfect throughout all three races of the weekend.

It also meant that Brown had to pull it all together in qualifying, something which has been easier said than done in 2025. Sure enough, it rang painfully true when he qualified 12th for the 100km sprint on Friday.

However, rain appeared as though it could have been a saviour for Brown, but not before midpack mayhem finally caught out the 2024 champion.

“It started raining and I actually thought that might be good for us after how quick we were at Sandown," said Brown via his Lucky Dogs podcast.

“Obviously Randle got me down at Turn 9, spun me around, and I’m like, ‘Far out, we can’t take a trick at the moment.’

“Once again, it’s probably a little bit our own fault for qualifying so average, you put yourself in those scenarios, but I was pretty disappointed to get turned around. “I thought it was all over, and I somehow got back to ninth in 15 laps. A lot of people pitted, and then obviously went time certain, red flag."

It wasn't until after the opening race of the weekend that it dawned on Brown just how much work lay ahead if he was to claw his way back into the fight.

Having slipped from 35 points behind Feeney to 48 points down in the shortened race, the odds only grew longer, however that's not to say the 2024 Sandown 500 winner wasn't proud of yet another fighting drive.

“To get back up to ninth was really good, at least it kept us in the hunt with Kai. I think we finished pretty close to him, I think he was fifth," Brown continued.

“Unfortunately it meant that Chaz and Broc both gained more points, and to be honest I didn’t think that the 35 points Broc had over me or the 20 that Chaz had over me were a lot of points.

“But it’s actually a fair few points in those sort of scenarios in those last rounds, it can really help you win it or not.

“When I came ninth in that one and lost about another 25 points to Broc, I thought it’s going to be pretty hard this weekend now to claw my way back, because they need to have something go wrong.

“Even if Broc had two thirds and I had two firsts, I probably wouldn’t have got to him. It felt like we were on the back foot straight away to be honest.”

Sure enough, as Feeney won on Saturday and Mostert finished second, Brown slipped to be 76 points off the pace with 125 available on the final day. It was at this point where he conceded his back-to-back bid was over.

“Obviously it was between Chaz and Broc, but if anything went wrong for those guys I wanted to be ahead of Kai to make sure that I had a shot at winning the championship," Brown recalled.

“I was a little bit out of the game on Sunday to be honest, I didn’t think we could really win it.

“Unless people had other stuff go wrong, which you don’t want to wish upon them, but that was the only way we could win.”