Brown wins, takes Super2 points lead

Will Brown has capitalised on trouble for Brodie Kostecki and Thomas Randle to take the Dunlop Super2 Series points lead with victory in the Sydney opener.

The Erebus Motorsport young gun scored a second career win after overtaking Randle on a Safety Car restart with seven of the 18 laps remaining.

Randle, who had shot into an early lead from ARMOR ALL Pole, trailed Brown to the chequered flag by 0.6s.

However, Randle was demoted to ninth in the result thanks to a 15-second time penalty for breaching the restart rules, having braked to slow Brown’s run on the straight.

The penalty put Randle one place ahead of erstwhile points leader Brodie Kostecki, who’d slowed with an electrical problem while running second on lap three.

Kostecki crawled into pitlane before resuming and was 20th, 90 seconds off the lead, when the Safety Car was called on lap eight to recover Zane Morse’s Holden from the Turn 1 gravel.

Rookies Jayden Ojeda and Broc Feeney ended up second and third after the MW Motorsport Nissan overtook the Tickford Falcon just prior to the full-course yellow.

Tyler Everingham scored fourth in Anderson Motorsport’s first Super2 outing ahead of Triple Eight’s Angelo Mouzouris, Eggleston’s Jack Perkins and Image Racing’s Jordan Boys.

Jaylyn Robotham was the top Super3 runner in eighth outright, showing the rest of the previous-generation cars the way on his debut in the MW Motorsport Falcon.

Zak Best and Matt Chahda were 12th and 13th despite tangling twice during the race, which resulted in Best spinning on lap one and Chahda going around shortly after the restart.

Both of Brown's Super2 wins have come in night races, following his breakthrough triumph at Barbagallo last year while driving for Eggleston Motorsport. 

“It’s awesome to get the first win with the transition over to Image Racing, and with everyone at Erebus, it was nice to repay them with a win," he said.

"With the teams having to relocate to New South Wales everyone has put in so much effort, so it’s great to reward them with a win and that was pretty exciting.

"It was a good tussle with Brodie at the start, we both generally had good pace, but Brodie ran into some trouble early on and I noticed that I was closing in on Randle.

"When the Safety Car came out, I thought it was our chance and so I took the opportunity.”

A second ARMOR ALL Qualifying and 18-lap race will conclude the first combined Super2/Super3 round on Sunday.