‘We need friends’: Brown’s cheeky ‘gifts’ for rivals

In the video, the Triple Eight Race Engineering driver jokingly offers Ryan Wood, Nick Percat, Brodie Kostecki, Anton De Pasquale and David Reynolds “gifts” from his Cars Galore business.

Money is never sighted in the video, although bribery is heavily inferred.

Brown makes light of Wood’s early exit from the Finals Series from the Gold Coast 500 and their clash earlier in the season, suggesting the pair put their differences aside.

The Red Bull driver is currently fifth in the standings after a tough Gold Coast, with only four to go through to the Adelaide Grand Final.

Although the video is comedic in nature, its publication is a bold move given fears around “race manipulation” expressed in the lead-up to the Finals Series opener on the Gold Coast.

Team tactics and interference by non-Finals Series drivers could yet surface in the last two events – an issue that has troubled past editions of NASCAR’s Playoffs.

Supercars responds to Finals Series ‘manipulation’ fears

Supercars has declared a “wait and see” approach on the subject, despite concerns from Motorsport Australia officials that the situation needs a more proactive approach.

In any case, Brown goes into Saturday with “work to do” to improve on Friday’s practice performance.

Brown was 11th and half a second off Practice 1 pace setter Anton De Pasquale. In Practice 2, the #1 driver wound up seventh and two tenths off David Reynolds, suffering a spin.

“I feel like we rolled out not where we wanted to be this morning,” said Brown at the end of Friday practice.

“I mean, we’ve had success here, we’ve had a fast car most of the season, we’ve been able to make it work and it feels like today we’ve come out and aren’t where we wanted to be.

“So we’ve gone about it, two practice sessions today, we made a few changes and got a bit better between the two then made some ground towards the end there.

“We’re a bit better on the greens, but even then we spun on our second lap there which is disappointing, so again, a bit of work to do before tomorrow.

“We’ll have a look at it with the team, do what we need to do – obviously tomorrow is super important for us and we need to be ready so we’ll go get ready and go for it tomorrow.”