Brown's Roundup: Hard racing and comeback podiums

This is the fourth of Will Brown’s post-event columns for Supercars.com. The Erebus Motorsport driver recorded finishes of 4th, 3rd, and 11th at the Penrite Oil Sandown SuperSprint. Get the lowdown on Brown’s ninth event of his second full-time season.

It was an extremely positive weekend in Sandown. 

To be back running in the top five, and to be extremely competitive all weekend was awesome.

We rolled out of the trailer really well, and we had two good races, even Sunday's last race wasn't bad.

I think we would have got seventh in the finale, we just caught that hit off the start, which made the tyre hard to change in the pitstop. It put us back, but overall, a really good weekend.

In Saturday's race, I had the widest Supercar out there, that's for sure!

I thought the battle with Cam [Waters] was great, I'm all for hard racing.

There might have been one move now I've watched it back that maybe was a little bit iffy, but overall, if Cam did that to me, I would understand that it's hard racing.

If you're finishing a 37-lap race, and you've got three laps to go, I'm not going to let someone pass. 

I think there was one move up at Turn 1 that was probably me not knowing where he had positioned his car, I thought he was actually behind me, and he was a little bit more up next to me.

I could have left him a tiny bit more room in that one move, but overall, I think the rest of it was fair play. I think you're allowed to block. I didn't move over and push him off the track. I just made it hard for him to go around the outside as well.

I've had plenty of hard racing this year. I've given plenty of hard racing, but I think that's what the category is about.

There's no point just going out there and letting people pass you. It's not what the fans want to see. 

It was awesome to get a podium after announcing the re-signing.

Getting back on the podium was nice, and it's awesome to stand on the podium, but it was just refreshing to be competitive all weekend.

For us to be back in that top five, and really be putting a bit of pressure on some people was awesome.

There was probably a tiny bit of luck involved in the podium result. We had a fast car weekend, but we were helped by Davison having a bit of a bad pit stop.

That allowed us to get in front of him, but then, I also had good tyre life.

Me and Tom Moore [Engineer] spoke about tyre life and strategy for the last stint, and I think we executed that perfectly and didn't catch Dave [Reynolds] until the end.

I had enough tyres left to get around him, so it was just sort of the perfect race for being able to get on the podium.

In Sunday's race I had quite a bad hit off the start from Jake Kostecki, I think someone was hitting him as well, but it just damaged the rear left on my car a fair bit.

I was running about tenth, and everyone pitted early, so I decided to go long and from effectiveness, we were meant to pop out in front of Randal.

We lost two seconds in the pits and lost a spot to Thomas, Reynolds, and Courtney.

It was quite difficult for me to get past James [Courtney] so ended up finishing 11th.

Just that two and a half seconds in the pit stop, when you're going so fast around the track, that's a fair bit of time to lose.

However, the biggest thing is that we rolled out of the trailer extremely competitive straight up.

We were only tweaking, we weren't making wholesale changes, and I feel like the boys did a fantastic job in the pits.

All the pit stops all weekend were extremely consistent, there were no mistakes until that last one which probably wasn't their fault either.

It was a positive weekend for pit stops, it's something that we've been working on, and the boys have rejigged. They're trying to get them to the highest level.

There's always room for improvement in everything we do, and we're trying to bring in a few more procedures.

We are starting to ask ourselves not how do we win the race but instead how do we not lose the race?

That's the biggest thing that we've probably found with the pit stops or me making a mistake, it's how do you not lose the race?

Currently sitting 13th overall, it has been a really tough start to the year.

For myself, if I can get back into that top 10 of the championship, I'll be happy.

I think we deserve to be in the top 10, and I'm just hoping that we can have a good end of the year and get ourselves out there.

Looking ahead to New Zealand, I scored a podium in the Toyota 86 race in 2016, but I've never raced Supercar at Pukekohe before.

To prepare I'll watch a bit of footage, look at data and watch some of the races on Kayo. 

That's how I normally prepare, I find footage is the best thing for me to get ready.

We are all professional drivers, so within five laps around a new circuit, we'll all be within a few tenths of each other, so it's pretty amazing in the Supercar category.

Everyone says the New Zealand fans are awesome, and it's a massive event.

Being the last Supercars event at Pukekohe, I hope a lot of fans get around it.

That's what I'm looking forward to most, it being an awesome, awesome event and great racing.

I've got a few functions on in the next few weeks, I've got KMC wheels night in Sydney, then this weekend Boost are putting on a really cool Winter Jam at URBNSURF in Melbourne.

Hopefully, a few people come out to that, there's surfing there's live music. I'm looking forward to it.

Then next week I'm relaxing for a week before the trip across the ditch.

Brown will continue his 2022 campaign at the ITM Auckland SuperSprint. Purchase your ITM Auckland SuperSprint tickets now.