Why Brown is happy to be disappointed with third

Before the Century Batteries Ipswich Super 440, a third place finish would've been received like a race win by Will Brown, such had been the torrid start to his campaign.

However, a relatively quiet run to third place on Sunday came after what was one of the more remarkable form reversals on Saturday, and a brilliant Shootout pole just hours earlier.

The disappointment was rammed home by a dominant run by Broc Feeney, who bested Brown in a thrilling first lap battle before disappearing into the distance to steal the Repco Sprint Cup from a heartbroken Matt Payne.

Whilst Sunday did little to overshadow what was a timely weekend for the 13-time race winner, Brown admitted that it was "cool" to be disappointed with strong results once again.

"Obviously a very cool weekend for my side of the garage, to bounce back like this and get three podiums was amazing," Brown told media after Sunday.

"A pole position today, as we know I'm probably not known to be the best qualifier, so to go out there and do the lap we did in the Shootout was amazing.

"Just a fantastic weekend, it was pretty cool to be disappointed with coming third today. We haven't had that for a long time.

"But we started off pole, wanted to be a bit faster. Obviously Broc off the start got a good jump and held around the outside, if it wasn't a team car it probably would've been a little different, so you can pay for my food tonight at the hotel."

Even if he did manage to hold sway on the opening lap, the 2024 champion admitted he likely still had no answers for the supreme pace of Feeney, who comprehensively gapped the sister car across the opening stint.

On average, Feeney was some 0.29s/lap faster than Brown in the finale, whilst second-placed Brodie Kostecki was just a tenth down on Feeney per lap.

"He just did a good job, I knew that I couldn't just run him off, and I held him around the outside, and we went really deep into Turn 3. I thought, 'Oh geez, this is going to get tight,' and Kai [Allen] got under us. Great racing," continued Brown.

"These guys were class acts today. Brodie, very fast, came back through, ran long, and Broc put seven seconds over us in the first stint, so we've got work to do.

"We'll look at why that was, because we were strong in the other races, especially on the Super Soft, I felt like we weren't too bad, so we'll check our car and have a look at it.

"Obviously we've got the data from the race winning car, so we'll look at it."

Regardless of the disappointing conclusion, his drought breaking win on Saturday, his first in more than a year, was timely proof that Brown is still right on top of his game when everything falls into place.

Whilst some, including Craig Lowndes, believe it may be premature to call him a title contender off the strength of one weekend, Brown is adamant that he is firmly on the road to another Grand Final berth in Adelaide.

"It's amazing how the tide turns so quickly to be honest, some people even up until Friday just gone were counting us out, and then we had the gearbox issue and couldn't really show our potential on Friday.

"To come up with what we have, I personally think we have got a shot at the title still. Everyone in the top 10 can move their way through, but this weekend I think we showed that we can win races and run up the front with the fast guys.

"We won a championship for a reason in 2024, and we've still got the same crew and good people around us, so I'll be working very hard over the next couple of months to make sure that we're there in the Final Four, and we're there with a chance."

Brown will resume his successful enduro partnership with Scott Pye, and also welcomes David Cauchi as race engineer for the remainder of the season, with Andrew Edwards promoted to Triple Eight's Head of Performance.