Will Brown: Australia’s Smiling Assassin

Will Brown has only just run his 110th race in Supercars, which moves him into the sweet spot of having enough experience now to match his youthful vigour. He is part of the changing face of Supercars that is bringing a new brace of heroes in their 20s that is replacing the veterans and the middle-aged racers as the big names of the sport.

He is also about to become a casual participant in the NASCAR Cup Series, with his pending debut at Sonoma Raceway this weekend with Richard Childress Racing.

Brown’s off-season move to replace NASCAR-bound Shane van Gisbergen at Red Bull Ampol Racing was a big thing. He had to break a contract to get there, but when the biggest and most successful team in the land knocks on your door you are going to do what it takes.

He has hit the ground running this year too and leads the Championship a third of the way into the season.

But who is Will Brown, and why should NASCAR fans pay attention?

He grew up in Toowoomba, a city of 150,000 people over an hour outside Brisbane. It is the same city from where multiple IndyCar Champion Will Power hails. He won the Australian Formula 4 Championship and the Australian Toyota 86 Racing Series in 2016, and then the TCR Australia title in 2019, and now he drives the #87 car in the Australian Supercars Championship Series.

He has SVG’s old engineer, Andrew Edwards, by his side, guiding him through his first season with the team.

“They have more sponsors on board, and with that comes more sponsorship appearances, but there’s also meetings to prepare for weekends and a lot of other different things. It’s just a bit more of a corporate than a family environment sort of thing,” he said of comparing his new team to his old team.

“It’s been great, though. I think it makes you step up to the next level and I think I’ve done that this year and working with people like Andrew Edwards in the team has really helped as well. He completely understands that every driver is probably a little bit different.

“Anywhere that he can assist me and having the data and having the experience of working with Shane, if he can give me any knowledge from what Shane used to do, I’m always willing to take that sort of information on board because Shane did such a good job while he was here. If I wasn’t doing that, I wouldn’t be in the position I am now.”

And this weekend, he’ll have SVG by his side to as spotter even though he is running with RCR rather than Trackhouse, in what may be the first of many NASCAR drives.

To find out more about Brown, check out the feature article in the digital edition of Auto Action 1885.