'I'm going to remember that one': Brown fired up over Wood clash

Will Brown insists he has banked in his mind the Ipswich clashes with Ryan Wood that ruined both drivers’ races in the Ipswich finale.

Brown muscled past Wood at Turn 6 late in Sunday’s finale, with the latter taking issue to the Triple Eight driver’s move. At Turn 3, Wood responded with a tap. However, Brown was sent into a spin, and to the back of the field.

Brown finished 16th, while Wood was penalised and classified 21st. A post-race penalty over a pit stop breach ultimately put Brown down the field further.

In a show of frustration, Brown found Wood on the cool down lap after the race. Brown gave Wood the middle finger, and they banged doors around Turn 3.

Speaking on the latest episode of his Lucky Dogs podcast, Brown rammed home that he's provisionally in The Finals, while Wood is far from secure, saying: “I've bookmarked it. He’s ninth. I’m third. I’ve got a ticket to The Finals.

“I can tell you right now, I’m going to remember that one... I just think, at the end of the day, if you let it slide he’s going to think he won.”

While the pit stop penalty dropped Brown behind Matt Payne in the standings, it was Wood’s forceful return of serve that fired up the Red Bull Ampol driver.

Post-race, Wood admitted Brown was vulnerable to a spin after the contact, saying: “Once you're at the peak load of your tyre and then you get one little bump, it can go pretty bad like it did.”

Brown said his move was fair in his mind, and was adamant his overtake and contact didn’t deserve such a response from Wood.

"I had the shits about that though because I didn’t feel like what I did to him was bad enough to turn [me around],” Brown said.

“He came over to talk to me, kind of said, ‘I thought your pass was worse than it was’. He said, ‘You were into my rear bar and rubbed me up’ and he goes, ‘You should have known what I was like’ and pretty much saying, 'I’m going to turn you around if you do that'.

“They reckon that I rubbed him up the corner before, but there’s no way to pass around Ipswich without what I did there.

“I don’t think that really unsettled him that much and it wasn’t that bad… I thought he’d probably done enough and he’d be smart enough that he'll hit me somewhere to move me out of the road or just to say, ‘Hey, I’m unhappy’ but I didn’t think he’d turn me. I don't think he thought he'd turn me.”

On the cool down lap confrontation, Brown added: “I had to pass like 10 people to get to him on the warm down lap and I’m weaving through everyone.

“I actually was quite smart about it because I was like, 'I’m just going to get to him and then I’m not going to run into him', but when I get down to Turn 3 I’m just not going to turn, and he has to turn at some point. So I just kept driving straight and he was on my outside he just turned hard right into my door.

"I was like, ‘That’s fair enough'. He had to turn in at some point. I was trying to sort of put him in the gravel. Then he came back on and came around at the exit of Turn 3, he just drove into the side of me and then I gave him the finger.”