New Supercars champion Will Brown scored an almost unbelievable win in the 24th and final race of the championship on the streets of Adelaide.
Brown mounted a brilliant recovery after dropping to last place after his Triple Eight Chevrolet was turned around by his former team-mate Brodie Kostecki at Turn 7 early in the race.
As Brown recovered, his team-mate Broc Feeney and Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Chaz Mostert looked to be fighting for the win. That looked to be resolved in Mostert’s favour when, as they emerged from their second pitstops, there was contact between the pair.
Feeney, who was yet to cross into the fast lane of the pitlane, redressed the advantage but was hit with a 15-second penalty, effectively handing Mostert the win.
But even after Mostert was made aware of that he continued to defend his lead, and they made contact. The WAU Ford was fired into a wall at Turn 4 before Mostert limped back onto the track behind Feeney, who earned a second 15-second penalty.
Through the carnage emerged a smiling Brown, who won by 9.123s.
“I feel a bit more like a champion with that win, I never thought I could win it from there,” he said.
“It’s been a hard year, it’s been extremely stressful. I wanted to get more race wins, nothing better than tio win the last one.”
Mostert fought on, swapping places and paint with Will Davison’s Dick Johnson Racing Ford with three laps to go, those two and Tickford Racing’s Tom Randle sprinting to the flag, Mostert just holding on for what turned out to be second place after Feeney’s penalty dropped him to eighth.
Mostert was disappointed to miss the win but did not back down about trying to fight off Feeney.
“I was probably a little bit worried about this pace, if he got through 15 seconds might not have been enough,” Mostert admitted.
“It had pretty bad right-front damage after the pitstop, and I don’t know what the rear tyres were doing but they were not talking to each other.”
Third-placed Randle ended the year strongly with a podium result.
“I knew Chaz was limping, I did a switch back move on Will and stoked to get a podium, and P5 in the championship,” Randle smiled.
Davison was fourth, ahead of Matt Stone Racing’s Nick Percat, Kostecki, Feeney, James Golding (PremiAir Racing Chevrolet), Andre Heimgartner (Brad Jones Racing Chevrolet) and Cam Waters, who had to serve a 15-second penalty of his own in the Tickford Ford.
Once again the race featured two substitute drivers, Cooper Murray suiting up for Erebus Motorsport and Kai Allen stepping into the Grove Racing Ford, after Richie Stanaway failed to pass a concussion protocol.
In the final reckoning Brown took the title with 3060 points, from Feeney on 2838 and Mostert on 2667. Waters took fourth on 2551 ahead of Randle (2032) and Matt Payne (2019).
Triple Eight took a dominant teams’ championship win on 5868 points, from Tickford on 4523 and WAU on 4069.
There are a lot of team and driver changes coming up in the off-season before the 2025 championship – the first with a three-round Finals series – kicks off at Sydney Motorsport Park on 21-23 February.
