The 'genuinely stunning' performance masking Brown's biggest issue

If Will Brown wins the 2025 Repco Supercars Championship, he can look back at the Penrite Oil Sandown 500 as a seminal moment in his title defence.

The Triple Eight Race Engineering star has had a shocker in qualifying in The Finals, starting the four races across the Gold Coast and Sandown in 10th, 18th, 15th and 17th.

Brown's Finals qualifying average of 15.0 is well down on Grand Final rivals Broc Feeney (2.8), Chaz Mostert (3.0) and Kai Allen (7.5). However, his race average of 4.5, remarkably, is better than his regular season average of 5.7.

It has been one of the great Houdini efforts to get into the Grand Final, with Brown's 27 position gain across the two races setting a new record for a two-race event in the Gen3 era.

Writing in his exclusive Supercars.com column, title-winning engineer and data analyst Scott Sinclair claimed Brown's Sandown performance was "genuinely stunning."

However, Brown's qualifying performance (or lack thereof) will be his biggest talking point heading into Adelaide. Between Sydney and Bathurst, Brown delivered a qualifying average of 8.3. In The Finals, he is 6.7 positions worse off on average.

Per Sinclair, "the disparity between Brown’s season-long average qualifying position and his average race finish is statistically one of the largest we've seen in the last decade."

In Supercars’ PIRTEK Pick the Podium competition, only 12% of voters picked Brown to finish third in the Sandown finale, meaning fans are also sceptical of the reigning champ's form.

For all of his brilliant race pace, qualifying poorly in Adelaide won't save Brown, Sinclair adding: "Driving through the field for a second or third place finish won't be enough: he needs victories."

Brown is well aware of his hiccups, saying post-Sandown: "Awesome weekend of race pace. Qualifying, again, was very disappointing. We keep getting asked what the fix is there and if we knew we'd fix it.

"At the moment it feels like it's a combination of things we need to be getting right to get out there and do it as well as we should be. That was a problem all weekend, qualifying."

Track action in Adelaide commences on Thursday November 27.

Most positions gained to claim a podium in 2025

Correct to Race 31, 2025 Penrite Oil Sandown 500