Round 9 2025 – Supercars Championship
The Blygold SA team were there to cheer on Will Brown and co-driver Scott Pye when they rocketed from 16th on the grid to a remarkable fourth at the flag, securing strong points from the first endurance round of the season in Tailem Bend.
Race 26 – P4
Their weekend got off to an ideal start after Will topped Friday’s final practice session with a sizzling time that would have put him sixth on the grid in the shootout.
He wasn’t to make it that far into qualifying, however, thanks to an incident during Saturday practice that saw significant damage done to the No. 1 Red Bull Ampol Racing Camaro.
Scott was at the helm during the penultimate practice session during a test for the sport’s new safety car regulations. The sister car, piloted at the time by co-driver Jamie Whincup, hit the brakes too late in an error that caused a high-profile incident of friendly fire.
Both cars were able to return to pit lane, but Scott’s session was done, and both he and Will completed limited laps in the final practice session ahead of qualifying.
The car couldn’t be returned to its Friday sweet spot after copping the whack, and Will was knocked out of qualifying 16th.
But the weekend was set for a remarkable turnaround once the lights went out.
Scott took the start and was electric in the opening stint. He was up four places on the first lap and briefly led the race before making his first stop on lap 28. His second stint was also strong before returning the car after 48 laps.
Will took the wheel and rejoined the race a net fifth, a gain of 11 places from the car’s starting position, and set his sights forwards.
Nick Percat was the next driver up the road, and after a stint spent behind the South Australian, a slicker stop got Will ahead for net fourth place, which he held to the flag.
Will and Scott gained 12 places on their grid position, the most of any driver at The Bend, to score 234 points for the round. The reigning champion is 188 points off the top of the table but is already assured of a finals berth.
For us to recover to fourth shows that we had a good car underneath us, and that’s the positive we need to take away from the weekend. I really think we can race for wins if we can qualify a bit better. It’s a good recovery, and it’s put us in a good spot to have a lunge at the Enduro Cup.
It was a pretty tough weekend until we crossed the finish line on Sunday! We didn’t feel the strongest when we rolled out for practice, and then unfortunately on Saturday, after we’d made some changes overnight, Jamie just made a mistake and hit our car. We were out for a practice and a half, and we just didn’t feel as good as we wanted to on a brand-new tyre. Unfortunately we qualified 16th, which was not where we wanted to be and very average.
But in the race Scott did a fantastic job to drive us up the pack, and I was able to pick off a few more when I got in there. Scotty’s probably got sore shoulders from carrying us a little bit today! It’s a massively hard place to pass, so for him to pass so many people, it shows he’s still got it.
Round 10 of the Supercars Championship takes place on 9–12 October with the Bathurst 1000 at Mount Panorama Circuit.
