Australian Will Brown put his name in the record books with victory in the 69th New Zealand Grand Prix on the weekend.
He became the first Australian since Warwick Brown in 1975 to win, steering his Giles Motorsport Toyota FT60 to a two second victory ahead of the first Kiwi, Zack Scoular. Series champion Arvid Lindblad, driving a spare car, was third.
“I was nervous about the start and I knew if I could beat Broc away off the line I had a chance to get ahead and control the race,” an exhausted Will said on the podium.
“I was rooted. The first ten laps were really hard and I was quite stressed in the car trying not to make mistakes. I had a few loose moments and I had to calm down, breath and get it back together. After that I pushed on and we started to set some really fast laps.
“Zack was super-fast and always there. But it was a cool race. When I saw the Safety Car come out I knew I had to build a bigger gap. I’ve loved racing in the open wheelers and the NZ fans have been great.”
Conditions were windy, but the rain forecast had failed to arrive and it was a dry track that greeted the 17 runners.
At the lights it was Brown who made the best getaway and made the jump on Feeney he had hoped for. Broc didn’t get off the line well and had to slot into third behind Scoular, who also had a good start.
As they surged into the daunting final curve of lap one, 29 year-old Rashid went around the outside of Feeney for third in with a breath-taking move reminiscent of Liam Lawson’s pass on Marcus Armstrong – a move which secured him a Red Bull future.
Lap two was shaping nicely too until Enzo Yeh spun and returned to the track far too early, collecting James Lawley and putting both out. That brought out the Safety Car and it was lap six before the action resumed.
At the restart both Brown and Scoular got the jump on Rashid. Further back Lindblad – carrying number one on his FT60 for the Grand Prix – was looking very racy behind Feeney. Lap 7 and Rashid went fastest and that put him right on the tail of mtec team mate Scoular. Feeney meanwhile was given a warning for exceeding track limits on the same lap defending fourth from Lindblad.
There was more bad news for Heuzenroeder when he was forced to pit at the end of lap nine and retire with damage to his rear suspension after light contact with the wall. That elevated Michael Shin to sixth, Jett Bowling to seventh, Nikita Johnson to eighth, Matias Zagazeta to ninth and Kiwi Sebastian Manson into the top ten.
On lap 15 Feeney made it past Rashid, who was seemingly hampered by a loose panel on the front of his FT60. Lindblad was quickly on Rashid’s tail and when Feeney made a big mistake at the forest hairpin, it allowed both Rashid and Lindblad by. Worse still for Feeney, Michael Shin also found a way past. Further back Zagazeta was forced into the pits with a drive through penalty for exceeding track limits and fell out of the top ten and to the back of the field, a disappointing end to a season that promised so much.
Rooted he may have been but Brown remained in control at the front even though it was Lindblad who was the man on the move as the race entered its final ten laps. He finally passed Rashid on lap 17 and that put him up to third but five seconds down on Scoular. Zack remained less than a second behind Will as the remaining laps ticked into single figures.
The gap between the top two reduced on lap 23 and as they sped into lap 24 – with three to go – it was down to a second once more. Scoular could smell victory and put in his fastest laps of the race as he piled pressure on the leader. Brown though responded with his fastest lap of the race on lap 24. The flying Lindblad was still closing on both of them.
Will though, had done enough, and took the flag to become the eighth Australian to win New Zealand’s biggest single seater race adding his name alongside the likes of Moss, Brabham, Hill, Surtees, Amon, Rosberg, Norris and of course, 2021 winner and the last Supercars champ to win NZ’s big one, Shane van Gisbergen.
