Back in 2015, Motor Trader spoke to a young man working at his parent’s business – MTA Queensland member Cars Galore in Toowoomba – named Will Brown. At the time, we predicted Will, who was just starting out his career in motorsport, would go on to big things as a race car driver.

Last weekend, this prediction came to fruition when Will, racing for the Erebus Motorsport team in the Supercars championship, claimed his maiden race victory at the BP Ultimate Sydney SuperSprint finale.

The now 23-year-old held off the jostling Red Bull Ampol teammates Jamie Whincup and Shane van Gisbergen in Race 28 to secure the win. The end margin to Whincup was just 0.280s, with the top three covered by just 0.522s.

With this win, Will became the 82nd different driver to win an ATCC/Supercars race. He also became the second first-time winner of 2021 following Andre Heimgartner’s win at Tailem Bend. Not to mention that he is the first full-time rookie to win a race since a teenage Scott McLaughlin won at Pukekohe in 2013.

MTA Queensland has followed and believed in Will for a very long time, and are excited to see this tremendous win! Congratulations!

Read below to find out how Will’s journey began.

Remember this name . . . William Brown. You read it here first.

Not heard of him before? Not sure who he is?

Well, he’s a good-looking, articulate 17-year-old who goes to school every day, has homework to do in the evenings, recently got his driver’s licence and whose parents, Shane and Leanne, own the Cars Galore dealership in the southeast Queensland town of Toowoomba.

William, or Will, is a perfectly regular, normal young fellow . . . except for one minor detail – when driving on a racetrack, he is fast as lightning and could well be Australia’s next motor racing superstar.

It’s not really fair, of course, to say of anyone they could be the next Ricciardo, Webber, Lowndes or Whincup – it’s quite a bit of pressure to put on anyone’s shoulders – but Will has done everything in his short career to suggest he’s the real deal.

For just a few weeks ago, on the weekend of July 10-12, he drove into the history books by winning the very first race of Australia’s inaugural CAMS Jayco Australian Formula 4 Championship.

It’s a pretty stunning achievement – one that will make motorsport’s movers and shakers raise an eyebrow and take note – because Formula 4 is no ordinary motor racing category.

A single-seater, open-wheel racing category that focuses on driver development rather than car development, Formula 4 is backed by the FIA, the sport’s global governing body, and by CAMS (Confederation of Australian Motorsport) and is designed to be a step up from the Kart racing with which many young drivers start their careers, and bridge the gap to Formula 3 and, ultimately, Formula One or any other top racing category.

With identical cars – featuring Mygale carbon fibre monocoque chassis and powered by the Ford 1.6-litre EcoBoost engine tuned to deliver 160hp – which are capable of more than 230km/h, and with F1-style energy-absorbing cockpit surrounds, it is as close to an F1 drive as a teenager is likely to get. And with all the Formula 4 championships around the world using cars of similar specification, the drivers, teams and sponsors can see from the results where the talent lies.

So, winning the first race, taking an overall podium position for the three-race event, and taking the Rookie of The Round award (a rookie being a driver who is under the age of 18 who has competed in no more than three national series or championship circuit racing events) won’t go unnoticed. And for the young man from Toowoomba, who has powered his way to victories too many to mention in the world of karting, the move up to Formula 4 is exciting and the victory unexpected.

“It was pretty amazing,” he says. “We were hoping to get top 5 but to get the win was fantastic, especially being a rookie and it being the first time for anybody to race those cars in a competition.

“It was my first ever Supercar event and the atmosphere was awesome – the amount of people around when you drive out onto the track is crazy. It’s a fair bit different to karting! At karting events I’ve just got dad with me, but at the F4 I’ve got dad, my engineer, my mechanic and the whole team – it is very different.

“In Race One I started from second place behind Jordan Lloyd, but he had a lock-up and went a bit wide and I took the lead on about the second corner and maintained it from there. We had a safety car about halfway through which brought the field back but I managed to stay in front.”

Actually, Will’s description of the race doesn’t really do his performance justice. He dominated once he took the lead and won the race by nearly 3 seconds – an eon in motor racing terms.

A reverse grid position for Race Two saw him start from 6th place and finish fourth, while some gearbox trouble and other niggling problems with the car meant an 8th place finish in Race Three. But even with that disappointment, an overall third-place podium finish, plus being awarded the Rookie of The Round medal, meant the Townsville event was a
resounding success.

For Shane, watching his son take the chequered flag in that first race was an emotional moment.

“I’ll be honest, I had tears in my eyes,” he says. “It was a very big moment for us.”

It has been a remarkable, and quick (excuse the pun), rise for Will. He began karting just three years ago, racking up an extraordinarily long list of victories and titles, and impressed enough through karting and through the various CAMS development programs to get encouragement from Cameron McConville, General Manager of Motor Sport Development for CAMS, to move into Formula 4 and win a seat with the AGI team.

And he says that although driving F4 cars is different to karts, there’s no doubt karting offers valuable skills and experience – the short, tight, twisting tracks forcing the development of lightning-fast reactions.

“The karts are different, of course – there are no gears and you have rolling starts” says Will. “But the race craft you develop in karting does cross over. It’s just a case of finding your limits again. It’s not too bad a transition.”

The transition is not all about the driving though. The move up to Formula 4 brings with it an expectation of professionalism that even an F1 driver would recognise.

Through the CAMS Academy, Will has learnt about fitness techniques, dietary planning and has even attended lectures dealing with media training – an important part of any blossoming sporting career.

But there are also some differences from the elite categories. For instance, the cars are owned by CAMS and drivers don’t get access to them until the race weekend. And having never driven at some of the championship’s racing venues before, they have to come up with some imaginative ways to prepare.

For Will, this means using a hi-tech looking simulator, installed at home and programmed with all the tracks he will be racing through the season.

“It won’t help with the driving,” he says. “But it does help to know the tracks. We only get two practice sessions on a V8 weekend, so if I can go out there and already know the track well, it definitely helps.”

While Will can use his skill and talent to steer his car to victory, one area over which he has little control is the cost of a motorsport career. No matter what level you are at, motor racing is an expensive business and though Formula 4 is designed to keep the costs down, it is still a relatively pricey proposition.

It’s one reason why Formula One cars, or any car in any other category you care to mention, are always covered with company logos – sponsorship money helps to keep things running.

Will received sponsorship from the CAMS Foundation for the Townsville race, and has received some backing for upcoming events.

“For the whole season, with insurance and so on, it will probably cost us in the region of $200,000,” says Shane. “Which is why sponsorship is important. We are looking for sponsors and we have support from companies such as Colliers International, which is giving us some backing for the upcoming Ipswich event.”

Of course, sponsors expect something for their money and Formula 4 offers something a little bit special there too. While smaller category events can mean sponsors’ exposure is limited only to those people attending the event, and perhaps the local media, Formula 4 is a support category for the V8 Supercars and, as such, receives full coverage on Fox Sports television.Because of this, there’s little doubt that Shane’s own business, Cars Galore, is better known now than ever – Will’s first-race victory and burgeoning profile ensuring his car, and the Cars Galore logo affixed to its side, featured prominently in the weekend’s footage.

Regardless of how the search for sponsors goes, the season rolls on, and by the time you read this, Formula 4’s second round will have been completed – the championship moving to the V8 Supercars Super Sprint event at Ipswich’s Queensland Raceway from July 31 to August 2. After that, its five more races through to the finale at Sydney Olympic Park in December.

And then? Well, for the inaugural Formula 4 champion it will mean a trophy and $250,000 in financial support, as well as the opportunity to test for the Carlin Formula 3 team in Europe. For the second, third and fourth placed drivers, there will be the opportunity to take up an official test with a V8 Supercar Development Series team. There’s also $20,000 up for grabs to the Rookie Medal winner.

But whatever happens, Will appears to have his career pretty well planned out, at least for the moment.

“The Dunlop series would be my next target. I will try and get into that,” he says. “And though I think Formula One is awesome, I’d rather move towards the V8 Supercars.”

Will plays it admirably straight when asked the inevitable follow-up question, ‘Ford or Holden?’.

“That’s a tough one,” he says. “But I suppose whichever one pays me!”

So there you have it. A few seasons from now we could well see a young superstar called Will Brown charging down Conrod and taking the chequered flag at Bathurst.

And if that does come to pass, then remember, you read it here first.

Source: Motor Trader e-Magazine (August 2015) 

1 August 2015