Will Brown is hopeful that he will be able to race again in a competition such as Supercheap Auto TCR Australia next year, alongside Supercars commitments with his new team.
The Queenslander has been granted a release by Erebus Motorsport, where he had been contracted for the 2024 Repco Supercars Championship, and is considered a virtual certainty to take over the Triple Eight Race Engineering seat occupied presently by NASCAR-bound Shane van Gisbergen.
However, Brown has also been a regular in the Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series since its inception in 2019, when he won the hot hatch title in an HMO Hyundai.
He was to have gone around again in 2020 only for COVID restrictions to wreak havoc on Australian motorsport, and his plans as an official Hyundai junior.
However, he returned last year with the Melbourne Performance Centre Audi squad, with which he scored two race wins and pole position in recent days at Queensland Raceway.
Speaking to Speedcafe from the Ipswich circuit, Brown said, “It’s not probably about doing two championships as such but, this year, I was able to fill up my year with TCR and racing, and that’s been fantastic.
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“We’ve had a pretty tough year [in TCR] but I’ve been really happy to be racing nearly every second weekend for the whole year so, if I can do that again next year, that’d be fantastic.
“I’m always looking at opportunities and making myself better.
“Once you stop learning, you’re not going to be probably to the level you need to be in our sport so I find that racing something different – if it’s front-wheel-drive car, whatever – it always helps.”
Fortunately for Brown, indications are that Triple Eight would allow him to be competing in more than just the Red Bull Ampol Camaro which he is set to drive in Supercars in 2024.
Not only is TCR Australia’s title sponsor, Supercheap Auto, also the major backer of its wildcard Supercar entry, the Banyo-based outfit runs a transcontinental GT3 programme.
Brown’s would-be team-mate, Broc Feeney, generally drives one of its Mercedes-AMG GT3s in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Powered by AWS competitions in both Australia and Asia when those events do not clash with Supercars, and impressed his factory counterparts by qualifying on the front row at this year’s Bathurst 12 Hour.
Van Gisbergen, who was previously part of the GTWC effort, has been allowed to engage in any number of extra-curricular activities, such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the World Rally Championship, and speedway.
The two-time Bathurst 1000 winner was on double duty in NASCAR on the weekend just gone, making his oval debut in the Trucks and finishing 10th in the Cup Series race.
Vote on van Gisbergen’s weekend performance in this week’s Pirtek Poll
Listen to this week’s Speedcafe Newscast for more from Brown
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