Round 12 2025 – Supercars Championship
Defending Supercars champion Will Brown has booked his place in the first-ever Supercars grand final after two epic comeback drives at the Sandown 500.
Race 30- P2
Will suffered an early setback in Sandown when he missed the pole shootout from 15th in qualifying, his third successive Q2 elimination.
The lowly grid spot came despite Brown getting comfortably through Q1 as the fifth quickest car and despite him having ended Friday practice easily inside the top seven.
With the defending champion starting the weekend outside the top four on the points table and with only the leading quartet of drivers proceeding to Adelaide Grand Final, only a big performance would do to keep his title hopes alive.
Will duly delivered with an eye-popping drive to second place.
A ferocious first lap moved him to 13th, and he was all action from there, overtaking his way into the top five and eventually inheriting the lead as other drivers made their first stops.
He took his first service on lap 28 and dropped to 14th but again rose back into top spot before his final pit stop, this time dropping down to ninth.
That rapidly became fourth once the pit stop sequence settled, and a strong move on his teammate, who had started seventh, moved him into third place.
A long and tense tussle with Ryan Wood — who was defending on behalf of his title-contending teammate, Chaz Mostert, in the lead — eventually went his way too with a robust pass, securing him a hard-fought second place, up 13 places from his starting position.
Race 31 – P3
Sunday qualifying was again difficult for Will, whose run plan in Q2 meant he was out of the car too early in the session and was forced to watch on helplessly as others beat his time and shuffled him down to 17th place.
Forced into another epic comeback, this time in mixed-weather conditions, Will duly delivered.
He was up to 11th by lap 6, and a stop for wet tyres on lap 8 ensured he held that position. He was as fast in the rain as he was in the dry, overtaking his way all the way to third before switching back to slicks on lap 38.
With the rest of the race run at a relatively pedestrian pace to ensure everyone made it to the chequered flag without another stop, Brown was locked into the result, completing a second consecutive remarkably comeback, this time up 14 places.
The dual recoveries rescued his championship hopes, moving him into fourth on the points table to give him a shot at defending his title on the streets of Adelaide later this month with only a 50-point deficit to top spot.
“Some major ups and downs this weekend. Obviously qualifying was down again, but race pace was a huge up. We had mega pace during both races. I couldn’t have asked for a better race car from my team. I don’t think many other cars out there could’ve done that this weekend if they’d qualified where we did.”
“Saturday was a huge day, and I put in as much effort as I could — and we’d already put in a lot of effort behind the scenes after the Gold Coast to try and improve not only our qualifying but also race pace. Obviously it didn’t work out in qualifying, but we had an awesome race car.”
“When we got into it, when we got up to the front and really pushed, it felt like if Woody wasn’t there, I could have had a real shot at the win.”
“On Sunday qualifying was again very disappointing. At the moment it feels like it’s a combination of things we need to be getting right to get out there and do it as well as we should be.”
“But again our race car was mega. Thanks to all the guys and girls that brought everything together for us this weekend.”
“It’s been a lot of pressure over the last two rounds with this new finals format, and I’ve had some things not go my way. All up, to be in that final four and hunting for another championship is awesome.”
“Looking back at last season, it was an awesome run and an awesome feeling to win the championship. The hunger is there to do it again.”
“This isn’t a normal championship, but we’re in it, and we will do everything we can to prepare over the next few weeks to go in with a shot to win it.”
Round 13 of the Supercars Championship takes place on 27–30 November with the Adelaide Grand Final at Adelaide Street Circuit.