Brown's tongue in cheek response to qualifying woes
Will Brown has qualified 11th or lower in nine of 20 attempts
Reigning champion drops behind Matt Payne in the championship
Brown moved from 20th to 10th in Friday's Townsville opener
Will Brown has joked he should step back to co-driving to skip qualifying after suffering another miss in Townsville.
Friday marked the ninth time in 20 attempts that the reigning champion had failed to qualify inside the top 10, and the fourth time in a row.
The Triple Eight Race Engineering star powered from 20th to 10th in Friday's race, with teammate Broc Feeney moving from 14th to eighth.
While Feeney has been the qualifying king in 2025, Brown has hit trouble on a number of occasions, and qualified 14th, 17th and 11th in Darwin.
Come Friday, and after crashing in practice, Brown left himself in trouble in 20th, and at risk of losing even more ground to Feeney in the championship.
With Matt Payne fourth, Brown dropped to third in the points, having been no lower than second since joining Triple Eight last season.
When probed about his qualifying performance on the broadcast, Brown joked: "I'm thinking about going back to co-driving, just a safe pair of hands, just bring it through the race, doesn't have to qualify.
"I don't know to be honest, I struggled massively in qualifying once again, I felt like the lap time was okay, and the time was way off.
"Most people who qualify 20th, you don't see them drive up to 10th or have good car pace, but just really struggling in qualifying.
"It's kind of getting to the stage when you go out there and you start questioning, 'what sort of lap am I gonna put in here', and it's just going out there and not hitting it right now."
"Disappointing, but got my elbows out."
On social media, Brown went even further, writing: "Please leave tips in the comments on how to qualify better."
It was a stranger outcome for Feeney, who qualified on the front row in six of his last nine starts heading to Townsville. After finishing Friday's two practice sessions in second, Feeney floundered to 14th.
Feeney felt he had the pace to challenge for a podium, but made it too far a challenge to overcome after qualifying down the order.
"I think all day, we've been top three on pace," Feeney said.
"Unfortunately, the one run that we weren't was the one that mattered. We just didn't really grip up on that second set of tyres we were on, and obviously dropped a long way down the field.
"I think if we're up front, we probably could have stuck out for a podium. I don't think we've got the car to win at the moment, but we're not too far off.
Feeney leads Payne by 183 points, with Brown 188 down, heading to Saturday.
