Mark Webber intervenes over repeated Brown heat struggles

Will Brown has enlisted the help of a Grand Prix winner to overcome a battle with heat that was been a recurring story of his 2026 campaign.

The 2024 champion has twice been sent to the medical centre following cool suit failures in the opening 13 races of the year, namely in Sydney and Taupō.

Brown was in a particularly bad way after searing conditions in Sydney, however it was his Taupō plight that caught the attention of Australian F1 legend Mark Webber.

Webber, who won nine Grands Prix for Red Bull between 2009 and 2013, reached out to Brown before the second New Zealand event in Christchurch, however the Red Bull Ampol Racing star was already miffed at the situation.

"When I was in New Zealand, I had the second cool suit failure and I got really hot. I was shitty after that race, I was just annoyed because I got cooked again," said Brown via his Lucky Dogs podcast.

"Mark Webber called me when I was in New Zealand, which was really cool because it turns out guys like that are following what we're doing.

"He said that he's worked with this guy named Simon, who I've now met, in Melbourne, and he actually did a lot of the training with the Porsche guys when he was in LMP1, worked with the six drivers, and works with Oscar [Piastri] now.

"There's a lot you can do with heat training, which I'm not going to tell you guys, because I went through the pain to learn all this.

"Mark said, 'You need to chat to Simon because I think Supercars and everyone in general can do a bit better job on the heat side of it if these cool suit failures happen.'

"To be honest, it's not hard to do the race if everything works well, it's planning for the worst, hoping for the best if you do have a cool suit failure."

However, the testing had an unexpected twist for Brown: "We do this test, which is two hours walking at a certain speed in a 40 degree heat, and they measure your core temperature and all that sorta stuff, and they teach you how you should train for heat, and how your body is reacting to it.

"You can actually have episodes where if you cook yourself, the body doesn't regulate it as well, so they're checking for that.

"But I didn't read the fine print... I get there, and I'm thinking 40 degree heat for two hours won't be too bad. Then they say we need to measure your temperature for the whole time, so they give me this thermometer, and it's a probe.

"It's like how you check a dog, it's a rectal probe. They're doctors, they're professional. I'm from Toowoomba, I'm like, 'Oh yeah, because there's no other way you can test this!' I thought there was one you could swallow..."

Despite missing the fine print, Brown admitted that the testing was beneficial, and that he has already implemented changes to his training regime as a result.

Driver cooling will become a big focus in just over a month's time at the betr Darwin Triple Crown, which has traditionally been one of, if the not the hottest event of the season despite its mid-winter calendar slot.

Brown admitted that although Supercars teams can't afford to be on the same level as F1 teams when it comes to ensuring their drivers are fit, he believes heat training could become a hot topic following his initial foray.

"Hearing the level that those guys [Formula 1 drivers] are operating at, and the training they're doing, I knew it would be a lot but it's pretty next level after learning all this.

"We're behind, because in Australia we go, 'Here's some money to drive,' and I'm not saying the teams need to support it more, it's our job to get ourselves fit, but we don't do a lot.

"We don't get provided a trainer, or a dietitian. We take a physio to the track, and the team is great with that, but it's your job to get fit. The team paid for this because we've had the cool suit failures.

"I was very I glad I did it, because the amount of learning I got out of it, just the way you can heat train and prepare, any sort of pre-cooling, different ways to do that, how they're doing it overseas, it was extremely valuable to do."

Brown currently sits ninth in the points standings ahead of the Tyrepower Tasmania Super 440 from May 22-24. Tickets are on sale now.