Anything Can Happen At Bathurst, Learning Off Veterans, Battles This Year
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Mornings with Matt White
Supercars Driver- Will Brown 8/10/24
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Well, for supercars fans, for motorsport fans in Australia, there is no other race, no other week, no other weekend. Like it, no other circuit like it. The Bathurst 1000 is coming up. We'll be calling it right here on SCN. As I mentioned, Paul Dunbrill will join me for the call on Sunday. So looking forward to it. Now everything I've just said, not only goes for fans and spectators, but goes for drivers as well, including this man, the championship leader from Red Bull and Paul Racing is on the line. Will Brown. G'day, Will. G'day. Thanks, Andy. Thanks for your time, mate. So you've arrived into Bathurst. What's the schedule? You just have a little cuppa and a little chill? Yeah, pretty casual. I flew down this morning, got in at eight o'clock and, yeah, just chill out for today, really. And we've got a sonic session that's super cheap this afternoon, which will be great, but really relaxed and just get ready for the big weekend coming up. Okay, so how do you get ready? Because you and Scotty take the form from Sandown, which is winning form. Well done on that, mate. It was a great race to the end with you guys and your teammate Brock Feeney. So how do you now switch on forgetting everything right? Because as you well know, Bathurst means that you've got to have a lot of things fall your way. Oh, 100%. Bathurst is the pinnacle of all events in Australian motorsport, but it is a tough one. There's so many things that get thrown at you. It's a long race, so anything can happen throughout it. But you just got to prepare as best you can come here with the right mindset. You know, we already shifted focus straight after Sandown. I was straight into, you know, how can we win Bathurst? But it is, I think, a little bit of luck to win Bathurst. You need a fast car, but there's a little bit of luck that needs to be on your side. Mmm. But above all, you do need a fast car. And I reckon it's will a lot of people forget that. You know, it's a six-hour race, 161 laps. It goes forever. And you kind of take with all the strategy at play, co-drivers at play, fuel play, stops at play, you kind of forget the fact that racing is racing. And no matter what, you need a fast car. You guys have got a fast car. You've been on the podium 15 times out of 19 races. You had four race wins. So where's the starting point for you when you roll out the car later this week? Is it trying to just get a feel for the thing? Where do you start pinning the tail on the donkey? Yeah, I think I've got a, you know, I've been quite lucky this year, joining such a good team in Red Bull and Pole Racing. And my engineer, Andrew Edwards, you know, we've rolled out with the fast car. It's pretty much every event this year. And to get a podium at every event so far for the year is amazing. And something we're really proud of. But, yeah, it's a hard one. It's a nerve-wracking, no matter what. People are the drivers or people fail you with Red Bull now. You know, you must go to an event and think, you know, you can win or get on the podium. But you never know. You roll up each weekend thinking, you know, do we have a fast car? Hopefully we can qualify in the top 10 and make the top 10 shoot out. And then hopefully we can do a good lap in that. But it's about not being complacent. Not thinking that you've got the fastest car or the best drivers in any way and preparing as best you can to try and make sure that, you know, I guess that we prepare better than anyone else and, you know, do the best job on the day. You don't have to look around too far in your garage to find the kind of experience that knows all about Bathurst and winning Bathurst. And I'm talking about Jamie Wincup, of course. Now, he'll be driving this weekend with Brock again. He's won this thing four times. When you speak to drivers, and I know that you like to soak up information will, when you speak to drivers like Jamie, like Lowndes, like the others that have essentially tamed the mountain. What are you going in search of? I mean, is it a secret sauce or is it just a little bit of reassurance? Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, it's really hard to pick their brain. I guess it was a bit easier when you're younger because there was the basic stuff that you were trying to learn and all of that. Like they have so much experience, but it is hard to find that that bit. You're always asking their ideas and previous experiences of them to see if they can find anything. But Jamie has done an amazing job throughout his career. To be honest, it probably took me a few rounds this year until I started picking his brain and realized there's so much to learn from him. And yeah, I always try and get as much information off him as I can. And you'd be mad not to be with having him in our team. 100%. Now, on your team, mate, Brock Feeney. So, you're part and with Scotty, Brock's got Jay Dub. What we've seen throughout the course of this year is that you guys aren't afraid to race each other. And now that's the benefit of being at a good team and a good car and being very good drivers, right? So, you had a good battle at Sandown. You had a ripping battle back at New Zealand. If I fast forward and crystal ball to the end of Sunday, and if it is you and Brock at the back end of that race, is it all systems go? Is that sort of the mentality in it, Red Bull? Yeah, I'm not sure to be honest. It really depends on the situation and who's around us and that. So, there's different circumstances. But we try and the team try and let us race as much as we can. So, it'll be interesting. I'd love to be in that situation on Sunday that we both race each other for the win. That'd be awesome for the team and for both of us. But there's a lot of water to fly under the bridge till then. But we've had some fantastic battles this year and kept it clean. So, hopefully we can keep that up. All right, just one more thing. A lot of our listeners, mate. I've seen a first hand what you do in the downtime. You know, while race day is frantic and you'll do the bulk of the driving, obviously, there's a fair bit of downtime up there at Bathurst. You have practice, you have warm up, you have qualifying. Hopefully you'll be in the shootout. But then the bit's in between. You're a bit of an energizer bunny. You like to bounce around. You don't stop. So, what's your plan to soak in that downtime? Do you go out to the little caravan, had a little sleep? How are you going to do it? Yeah, I feel like from a driver's point of view, there's no real downtime once the Bathurst week starts. You know, if it's a team filling us up with media and sponsorship commitments in that downtime period or, you know, just general stuff like that, or you're looking at data with your engineer and going over race footage, there's really, yeah, I really find you wake up at 5.36 a.m. and finish at eight or nine o'clock each day at Bathurst. But, you know, that's what makes such a great event. It's just so busy and it's cool to have so many fans out here. Yeah, all right. Thanks for your time this morning, mate. Enjoy the rest of the week. You're there safe. That's part number one. And enjoy the race really looking forward to it. Congratulations on everything so far in the season. Go get them. Thanks. Appreciate it. There it is. Will Brown, Red Bull, Red Bull, Ampol, Racing. So coming off the win with Scott Pie at Sandown. And just let me put into perspective his season. So four race wins, including by the way we started the season at Bathurst in the 500. So we had the two races and he was on the podium with his second place on Saturday and then one on Sunday. So four race wins out of 19 races so far. But 15 of those 19 races, he's been on the podium. He's been there. In fact, the only time that he's been outside of the top 10 is once in those races where he had a bad weekend at Townsville, a bad Sunday it was. So he's had an extraordinary season. He's got a 189 point lead in the championship. And they don't want to talk about championship. I just didn't get the chance to ask him there. But they don't like talking about championship until after Bathurst. Well, guess what? On Monday, it's going to be after Bathurst. So they will be talking about that title race. We've got 10 Bathurst 1,000 winners in the field. There are six debutantes this season. The oldest driver in the race is Craig Lowndes. Now, he'll be having his 31st Bathurst start. Think of that. The most arts all time. Belonger Jimmy Richards, 35. Peter Brock, 32. So Lowndes, he is not far off equaling his mentor. Of course, he's got seven Bathurst 1,000 victories next to his name. And look out for Lowndes, not just because he's Lowndes. That's a big part of the reason. And just because it's Bathurst, that's a huge part of the reason. But also because of the kind of form, just recent, only one race. And him and Cooper Murray finished top five at Sandown. Cooper's on de Beau here at Mount Panorama. He's 23 years of age, so he's got a 50-something and a 20-something in the same car. But the lessons that Cooper Murray will learn, who's a talent, the lessons that he will learn just from Sandown, just from this race weekend alone, you, their money can't buy. That's the easiest way to put it. The most experienced pairings up there. Davey Reynolds and Warren Luff combine 39 starts. And Mark Winterbottom and Michael Caruso 39 starts as well. And I did get a text here. Josh the Bricky says, "been heading to Bathurst since I was a young fellow. Best moment, lousy winning in '06 after Brocky left us." That was memorable. Josh says, "We're heading up tomorrow to camp on the mountain. We'll have a good one mate." And he says, "Mostat and holds worth for the win." Now, there's only one car in the field where both drivers have won the Bathurst 1000, and that is Car 25. Chasmostat and Lee holds worth. Of course, they want to get it back in 2021 and Chas won it in 2014. They're the only driver pairing where both drivers know what it's like to win the great race. So, cannot wait for it. And as I mentioned, you'll be hearing it right here on SCN on Sunday.