Mostert has been the Clayton-based squad’s spearhead since 2020 and has already delivered the team one major honour, namely victory in the 2021 Bathurst 1000.

The Mobil 1 Optus Mustang pilot was also the top-finishing Ford driver in a 2023 title race which was dominated by two Chevrolet squads, and started 2024 with podiums in both races at Mount Panorama.

This year represents Brown’s seventh as a co-owner of WAU through United Autosports, and the American is naturally eager for success – but believes ‘Mozzie’ is a piece of that puzzle which is already sorted.

Asked when he needs a return in terms of success with WAU, he told Speedcafe, “Now,” then added, “I mean, Chaz is perfectly capable of being a championship contender.

“Obviously, last year, the facts say the balance of performance [parity] was way out, so, not a lot we can do about that [but] we tried to lobby.

“Hopefully, this year, it will be where it needs to be, but we have everything we need to be race-winning, championship calibre.

“So, I think we’ve gone into every year, the last handful of years, [saying] ‘Let’s go fight for the championship.’

“We haven’t got it done, obviously, but, when? Now.”

Asked then if Mostert is the driver that can do that, Brown was adamant.

“I think Chaz is definitely capable of winning championship,” he declared.

Mostert was busy being the only driver to seriously and consistently challenge the duo from Triple Eight Race Engineering in the Thrifty Bathurst 500 when Brown made those comments, and missed victory in Race 2 at Mount Panorama by 1.6s after 40 Safety Car-free laps.

Maintaining that challenge over the course of a whole season is another matter and, while the 31-year-old has been hit-and-miss at times, there are no doubts in Brown’s mind of his quality.

“He’s very fast, he’s great to work with, the team loves him, he’s a good personality, so he’s the type of guy you want in your garage,” he said of the 31-year-old.

“He’s unbelievably fast and I think some of his inconsistency, I put down to the team.

“No driver’s perfect – they all have an element of inconsistency at some point – but, I think he’s capable every weekend of putting the thing on pole and winning, which we’ve seen him do before; just not often enough.

“But, I think that’s been more on us than him, so we just need to give him a car that’s able to compete at the front on a weekend-by-weekend basis.”

Mostert sits third in the drivers’ championship, 21 points behind leader Will Brown, ahead of this weekend’s MSS Security Melbourne SuperSprint.

Practice 1 at Albert Park starts this morning at 11:25 local time/AEDT.