The 25-year-old was signed up as Shane van Gisbergen’s replacement in one of the Red Bull Ampol Racing Camaros and, one event in, leads the Repco Supercars Championship after a second place and then a win at the Thrifty Bathurst 500.
“It’s obviously awesome to sign with the team and then come out and win a race on my first weekend was awesome,” he said.
“It was a tough race out there – it was hot and Chaz [Mostert] was fast – so I was a little bit nervous in the middle stint if I was going to come back at him and we came back fairly strong.
“But, [an] awesome race, I felt like there was a fair bit going on, and it was good.”
Brown had run second for the bulk of the first two stints of Race 2 at Mount Panorama, with Mostert pulling almost six seconds clear at one point, although some of that margin was due to fuel fill strategy.
As it turned out, the two were line-ball on fuel-adjusted terms as they readied for their second pit stops, with a small error by Mostert on his in lap perhaps being the decisive factor in being jumped in the lane.
The outcome of Race 1 also came down to fine margins, with Brown losing the effective lead to team-mate and eventual winner Broc Feeney when he had a drama turning off his pit lane speed limiter.
Nevertheless, the Toowoomban was in an overall jovial mood after that encounter, having also put the #87 Chevrolet Camaro on pole position earlier in the day.
Asked post-Race 1 if he now understands why Triple Eight has been so successful for so long, he explained, “I think I noticed it before this week, to be honest, just walking through the doors and seeing the personnel they have and experience they have there is fantastic.
“I think they’re giving me the things I need to be able to win.
“It’s been awesome to work with everyone there – they do such a good job – great to work with Broc; it’s just been really cool so far.”
Brown also elaborated on the pit limiter issue he experienced in Race 1, explaining that the new-for-2024 Full Course Yellow limiter added to the drama.
He also moved to quell any lingering suggestion that he had been hard done by through a Feeney overcut.
“It was actually my complete fault,” admitted Brown on Fox Sports, post-Race 2.
“I lost about 1.6s up Mountain Straight. I missed my pit button and thought that new Virtual Safety Car button was on, pressed that, and then I was all confused.
“So, I lost a fair bit up there, and he did get a bit of an overcut, but I felt like I still would have got him if I didn’t do that.
“It wasn’t anything the team did; Andrew [Edwards, #87 Race Engineer] thought that the undercut would be bigger than the overcut so we’ll stay in front, so he did what he thought was correct and I’ll back him 100 percent.”
Brown will take a nine-point drivers’ championship lead over Feeney to the Melbourne SuperSprint on March 21-24, while Triple Eight is 201 points clear of Grove Racing atop the teams’ standings.
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