Red Bull teammates Jamie Whincup and Shane van Gisbergen got locked in a fiery battle but it was a 23-year-old rookie who stole the show in the final sprint race of the Supercars season.
Will Brown claimed his first ever Supercars win in his 38th career race, which was also the first race victory for team Erebus since winning Darwin in 2020.
“It was just a bloody awesome race. It was great,” an elated Brown said afterwards.
“It was just awesome at the end.”
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The young driver had to hold off frightening competition from the more experienced Red Bull teammates, but they seemed more focused on fighting each other than chasing down the rookie.
Van Gisbergen accidentally touched Whincup and apologised over team radio, saying, “sorry about that”.
Later in the race the pair collided again, this time forcing van Gisbergen off the track proper, and soon after Whincup moved even wider to force his teammate out further still.
“Why am I being run off the road?” van Gisbergen asked over the radio.
Whincup was ordered to let van Gisbergen pass as he had the better chance of chasing down Brown.
Whincup soon fired back the suggestion, “how about he works with me to get up to Brown?”.
The pair did focus back on chasing the 23-year-old and it made for a thrilling final few laps, but the Erebus driver held on in a thriller, and celebrated with burnouts.
The Red Bull pair were later asked about their battle.
“We were good for the win. SVG wanted to have a battle,” Whincup said of van Gisbgergen.
“I’ve only got a couple of races left so I’m not going to give anything away. There was plenty going on.
“We raced hard right to the end. It was a good opportunity to get a race win… I’ve only got a few left so dog eat dog.”
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