Brown makes statement as fire hurts Golding
In his first drive with the #1, reigning champion Will Brown made a statement by topping the 2025 pre-season Supercars test by a handsome margin.
Brown saved his best for last, firing a 1:30.1027 to steal the test from WAU young gun Ryan Wood at Sydney Motorsport Park.
Although the Triple Eight driver left it late, it was by a convincing 0.4079s margin with Cameron Waters rounding out the top three.
They were the only drivers to eclipse Nick Percat’s morning session benchmark with Broc Feeney, Andrew Heimgartner, Bryce Fullwood and Cameron Hill just shy.
Hill was the first to go into the 1m30s area when the session resumed and for so long his 1:30.7105 was unchallenged.
For the first 40 minutes he enjoyed a 2s buffer as Randle, Murray and Le Brocq all took their time to hit the track.
It was not until beyond the two hour mark when Hill was edged out by Feeney, who went half a tenth quicker with just over 60 minutes remaining.
But both of them were knocked off by Wood, who stole P1 inside the final 15 minutes.
The WAU threw down the gauntlet late and the reigning champion Brown picked it up at the last possible moment.
On his 66th and final lap of the session, Brown went purple and made an ominous statement, while Cameron Waters also made a late play to snare third,
It put the cherry on top of a productive session for the #1 as it also completed the equal most laps with Bryce Fullwood (P6).
In addition to the 66-lap pair only Jaxon Evans (P9) and Kai Allen (P18) recorded more than 60 laps, while Broc Feeney (P4) Jack Le Brocq (P8) Nick Percat (P12) Matt Payne (P16) Cameron Crick (P23) and Macaualey Jones (P21) all came close.
Whilst in the morning a suspected brake failure sent Aaron Love into the Turn 2 barriers, it was once again a dramatic afternoon session with this time a scary fire seeing the red flag return.
Sitting 15th, Golding was routinely driving the #31 PremiAir Camaro towards the final corner of his 18th when suddenly the passenger side of the car burst into flames.
The 29-year-old managed to get the car back to the pits where teams were able to extinguish the blaze.
James Golding stranded in the pits after the blaze. Image: Supercars
Although car #31 was not seen for the rest of the day, the main thing is Golding was unscathed.
Golding was thankful the fire started away from him and the car was still in one piece, despite the rear end being significantly damaged.
“As I’m halfway into the second-to-last corner, it’s gone up in flames in the inside of the car but on the left side luckily, not my side,” Golding recalled to Supercars.com
“It made a puff, not an explosion and then there’s flames.
“I just pressed the extinguisher straight away when I was at the apex of the corner.
“I was nearly going to pull over and get out, but it wasn’t getting dramatically worse.
“It was still on fire, but not needing to get out instantly, I’m just trying to get it back to an extinguisher. I got it back to pit lane, and then got out.
“I’m all good (but if it was out the back of the circuit) it probably would be burnt to the ground, if I didn’t drive to pit lane.
“They did a few tests on me to make sure I was all good, make sure I didn’t breathe in too much smoke or gas from the extinguisher.”
Although the cause of the fire is unknown, PremiAir released a statement on the incident.
“During a flying lap, as car #31 exited the last corner onto the main straight, it caught fire. Jimmy immediately went straight into the pit lane,” a PremiAir statement read.
“We are thankful to report that Jimmy is 100% fine. A lot of work lies ahead to repair the car, and the cause of the incident is currently unknown.
“We will update you once we have more details.”
This meant there were only 23 cars on track for the final hour of testing.
Throughout the day a number of teams gave their co-drivers an opportunity behind the wheel.
With the pre-season test complete, the stage is set for the 2025 Supercars season to begin on Friday where practice, qualifying and racing takes place.
2025 Supercars Pre-Season Test Afternoon session results
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