Wood 'mishap' denied podium shot, says Brown

Will Brown is adamant a Saturday podium was on offer in Saturday's NTI Townsville 500 race before contact with Ryan Wood midway through the second stint.

Brown started 12th after Triple Eight made an unsuccessful strategic gamble in qualifying, but again worked his way back through the field in the 68-lapper.

The 2024 champion followed up his Friday lap 1 heroics with another mega opening, gaining four spots on the opening lap, and maintained a presence in the middle of the top 10 until he came across Ryan Wood on lap 39.

Having got by the Kiwi, he parked up on the apex of Turn 2, copping a whack in the left rear for his troubles, and dropping the guard onto the tyre.

Whilst Wood was taken out of contention by Kai Allen just two laps later, Brown was forced off his wounded set of tyres of lap 43, compromising his final stint.

A finish of sixth was strong, whilst his race pace was markedly better than Triple Eight's baffling lack of qualifying speed. However, the Queenslander was convinced a chance to claim silverware was missed.

"I think today we would've been pretty close if we didn't have that mishap with Woody, we just torched our rear tyre which made us have to pit a lot earlier than we wanted for that last stint," said Brown on broadcast post-race.

"Hurt us in that last one, but I feel like the car's not too bad in the race.

"These tyres are tough, you overheat them, then you cool them, and then you overheat them. I thought Waters would drive right through to the podium being on six lap better tyres, then he just got stuck there.

"We've got a bit of work to do tomorrow, we need to qualify better as everyone knows, but we've got a fairly fast race car. P6 from 12th, it's not too bad. But just trying to bank points right now, stay consistent, and get a good solid spot in the Finals."

Brown also doubled down on the gamble to only do one qualifying run in Saturday's Q2 session, saying that the benefit of having a green set of tyres would've been felt had they been able to run their planned strategy.

All told it was still a good points day for Brown, who has now moved to be 247 points clear of the Finals bubble.

It's also worth mentioning that it was the fifth consecutive race that Brown has beaten teammate Broc Feeney. The only other time that has happened was early in 2024 across the Grand Prix, Taupō, and Perth.

"Nah not really, well we should but no," Brown replied when asked if he and the team would learn anything from their failed gamble.

"That's what we decided on at the end of the day, we wanted better tyres for the race, and if we got in the Top Ten Shootout we would've had greens.

"If we ran again, we wouldn't have had greens, we wouldn't have qualified really much better than where we were, so it is what it is. We're happy with what we did there, just punch on for the races."

The final day of the 2026 NTI Townsville 500 begins with Boost Mobile Qualifying at 11:25am AEST, followed by a Top Ten Shootout at 12:10pm, and Race 22 at 3:05pm.