Brown ended the three respective Friday practice sessions in fourth, eighth and fourth, approximately half-a-second from the pace on each occasion.

The day’s best times were set in the cooler conditions of the first session, where American Nikita Johnson led British Red Bull junior Arvid Lindblad and Korean Michael Shin.

Lindblad, 17, paced the second session – run in warmer conditions and largely utilised for race runs – before again ending up second behind 16-year-old Johnson in Practice 3.

Brown has not raced an open-wheel car since 2019 but isn’t shying away from comparisons to the latest crop of Formula 1 hopefuls.

“There’s a good young kid (Lindblad) that Red Bull sent out that is obviously very fast, so for me it’s about comparing myself against someone like that,” said Brown, 26.

“Someone that’s in F2, potentially is going to get to do F1 practices this year and all of that sort of stuff, compare myself against some of those guys.”

Brown, who sported a helmet borrowed from Liam Lawson after his own failed to meet the category’s homologation standards, reportedly made various changes to his car for the final session.

The Queenslander says he’s enjoying working with the Giles Motorsport team, as well as the chance to have his regular Triple Eight Supercars engineer as part of the program.

“I won my championship in 2016 in F4 with Stephen Giles, he was my engineer back then, so it’s cool to sort of reunite with him and race with his team,” said Brown.

“I wanted to bring Andrew Edwards out with me, I sort of bring him everywhere I go, even if it’s not Supercars, so that’s been great for him to come out this weekend.

“A couple of other people have come out, New Zealand is a lovely place, so everyone wants to come over here for the races.”

Brown was the fastest of the three Giles-run cars in the field. The day’s overall pacesetters Johnson, Lindblad and Shin are all part of a six-strong M2 Competition outfit.

The CTFROC field will return to the track on Saturday for qualifying and the weekend’s first of three races.

Click here for full details on how to watch the action which forms part of the Taupo Historic Grand Prix weekend.