Brown, Ryan, Whincup react to “unfortunate” championship-deciding crash

Erebus Motorsport’s Will Brown has described his incident with Shane van Gisbergen as a “shame” while Brodie Kostecki is on his way to a special Supercars championship success.

The title fight between Kostecki and van Gisbergen lasted just three corners as the latter suffered a race-ending crash on the opening lap of the penultimate race of the season in Adelaide.

With van Gisbergen out of action, Kostecki now simply has to finish to extend his 131-point lead beyond the 150-point threshold which will be enough to wrap up the 2023 title.

Ironically the other car involved in the incident was Kostecki’s Erebus teammate Will Brown.

Brown went into turn 4 side by side with Anton De Pasquale with the #9 forced wide and would run out of road.

He made heavy contact with the outside wall, which fired the Coke Camaro back onto the racing line and straight into the path of an unsighted and luckless van Gisbergen.

Not that there was ever any conjecture between the Erebus and Triple Eight cars, officials swiftly announced no action was required.

Reflecting on the incident, Brown believed he was alongside De Pasquale far enough to be given more room at the right hander.

However, he also said the move is something “everyone does”.

“It was just one of those things,” Brown said.

“When everyone blocks on the inside and you cannot make it up there it all banks up, so I went for the outside and knew I had good overlap.

Shane van Gisbergen and Will Brown make race-ending contact on the opening lap at turn 4 on Saturday in Adelaide. Image: Fox Sports

“I would have tucked in behind I wasn’t completely next to him and thought he could be able to see me, but obviously not.

“I am not going to judge it too much. He probably thought he was going to run me a bit wide and then I was in the fence and unfortunately took out one of the championship contenders.

“Obviously Shane couldn’t see and just ran up the back of me.”

“He (Anton) probably should have been left more room on the outside but it is what it is. Anton is not a bad bloke and everyone does that from time to time,” Brown continued.

“It is a shame because I though we had a fast car but that is just racing.”

In turn the incident has destroyed any hope of van Gisbergen saluting Supercars with a hat-trick of championships.

Triple Eight Race Engineering managing director Jamie Whincup was consigned to defeat after an “unfortunate” chain of events.

“It was unfortunate. Shane was just blind coming out of turn 4 where there was a parked car in Will Brown.,” he said.

“Thankfully no one got hurt. It has left quite a bit of damage to both cars but I am sure we will get them out for tomorrow.

“Of course it was unfortunate, but when you qualify sixth and 11th you are exposed to stuff like this.

“We will see what happens but it is pretty much all done for us sadly.”

Despite the turn of events there were no celebrations in the Erebus garage with boss Barry Ryan fearing a long night was ahead of the team to ensure Brown can appear on track on Sunday with a teams championship also on the line.

“It is going to test the team and will be the biggest Gen3 repair so far, so I am tipping an all nighter, but we will get it fixed no matter what,” he said.

“It is just unfortunate for Will and we were lucky one of the Red Bull cars were out as well so the teams championship is still okay.

“Now Brodie just has to finish the race and I don’t care if he comes last. He is not going to fight and is a smart enough guy to just do what he needs to do.”

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