BROWN ON THE PROWL
Newly-crowned Supercars champion Will Brown will be chasing more success and silverware during the summer off-season – in New Zealand.
He will be going back to his single-seater roots when he competes in the Formula Regional Oceania series across the Tasman.
However, it’s unlikely he’ll add another championship crown to his collection, with sources close to the series hinting he will only be taking part in three of the five races in the series.
Even so, his Kiwi campaign will include the pinnacle event of the year, the New Zealand Grand Prix at Highlands Motorsport Park, near Queenstown in the South Island, on February 6-9.
Brown will be looking to repeat the effort of his champion predecessor at Red Bull-Ampol Racing, Shane van Gisbergen – who charged from the pitlane to first place in the 2021 running of the GP after accidentally triggering the fire extinguisher just before the start of the race.
Van Gisbergen will also be in New Zealand in the early weeks of 2025, during the NASCAR off-season and ahead of his first full-scale attempt at the Cup series, getting another of his regular motorsport fixes by driving a sprintcar in speedway competition.
Brown's new move is not official yet, with no confirmation from either his Supercars squad or the Formula Regional Oceania series, but the effort is likely to be backed by Red Bull.
The Formula Regional Oceania championship is a little-known series in Australia, but in NZ it’s a big deal and some of the former participants have gone on to become global motorsport stars.
Past champions include McLaren F1 team leader Lando Norris, newly-promoted Kiwi RB driver Liam Lawson, Supercars racers Thomas Randle and Matt Payne, and the Jaguar (pseudo-Team Kiwi) Formula E squad of Nick Cassidy and Mitch Evans.
The New Zealand summer series is one of the only categories running at this time of the year and has the big bonus of providing FIA Super Licence points.
With all cars prepped by Toyota Gazoo Racing NZ, the field is as close to identical as possible and highly competitive.
It has proven a successful pathway to Europe but there are also a posse of former participants who are now stateside and racing in Indy NXT, led by Callum Hedge and Louis Foster.
The series is now onto its third-generation car, the FT-60, and – as part of the FIA’s recognised path to F1 – the category uses a similar chassis to other global junior categories with a 2.0-litre turbocharged Toyota engine punching out 285 horsepower.
It has a rapid-fire calendar with five consecutive weekends of racing through January and February (which is why so many internationals take part) throughout NZ – starting at Taupo International Motorsport Park from 9-12 January and culminating at the NZGP.
Brown’s short NZ campaign is believed to be because of calendar clashes closer to home, with another crack at the Bathurst 12-Hour likely to be announced in the coming weeks.
Brown finished sixth alongside Triple Eight teammate Broc Feeney and Canadian AMG GT3 pro Mikael Grenier in the Bathurst classic at the start of this year.
Although Brown is best known for his success in Supercars, first with Erebus Racing and more recently at Triple Eight, he had a successful run through single-seaters in his younger days.
His graduation from karting saw him contest both Formula Ford and Formula 4 in 2015.
The following year he fell one round short of taking out both championships. He still won the Formula 4 title but was just 12 points shy of the Formula Ford title after missing the opening round.
That year also saw him take a win in the Toyota 86 Championship, before adding a TCR Australia crown in 2019 with Hyundai.
Like van Gisbergen, Brown will drive anything.
This year he’s mixed his 9-to-5 Supercars' duties with extra-curricular appearances in NASCAR in the USA, as well as a 12-hour Hyundai Excel enduro, and in recent years he has also made starts in S5000, Super2, as well as the Bathurst 12-Hour in both GT3 and MARC cars.
