Brown's tongue-in-cheek response to comments over tough start
Will Brown heads to New Zealand sitting 13th in points
Brown won thrilling 2024 Taupō finale en route to championship
Triple Eight star eager to steer clear of trouble
Will Brown isn't hiding behind a rollercoaster start to 2026, to the point that he is relaxed enough to jokingly admit he hasn't had "any good rounds."
The 2024 Supercars champion heads to New Zealand off the back of his best performance of the new season to date, racing from pole to second in the Melbourne finale.
Brown carried a race average of 14.8 into the last Melbourne race, which he duly led up until the closing laps before ceding the race lead to eventual winner Brodie Kostecki.
At last, the Red Bull Ampol Racing star secured a result to smile at, even if he was disappointed to let the win slip to good mate Kostecki.
Brown heads to Taupō as a former winner, having defeated teammate Broc Feeney in the 2024 finale. While neither Triple Eight driver reached the podium last year, Brown did outscore Feeney for the weekend.
"We had a great 2024 [at Taupō]. The cars were super fast. I had a fantastic battle with Broc, but last year we weren't quite as strong,” Brown told Supercars.com.
"So this year for us it's a bit of a reset.”
Brown continued, but caught himself over his own comment, laughing: "We've had a couple of good rounds, a little bit tougher at Grand Prix — sorry, we haven't had any good rounds.
"Can I redo that? Because I haven't had any good rounds yet. Do you wanna redo that part or you just wanna slip that in there?
"Okay, let's redo that question. Ask me again.”
The driver himself agreed, but Brown also made a clear point of staying out of trouble after being caught up in a series of clashes across the opening two rounds of the year.
“We're definitely putting the work in to make sure we can get back up the front and hopefully I have a good weekend,” Brown said.
“To be honest, it's been a disappointing start to the season. This has probably been my worst one in years.
“But our pace hasn't been too bad. Obviously we got a pole down at Grand Prix and a second place, but we were running up the front a lot of the time, just had a fair bit of stuff go wrong.
“Some of it was my fault, some of it wasn’t. So just gotta really stick out of all the carnage and try and get some solid results over there.”
Track action in Taupō commences on Friday April 10.
