Supercars: Will Brown tops Practice 3, 2018 Sandown 500

[Hogg]

ONE of the youngest drivers on the Sandown 500 grid upstaged the veterans to top Practice 3.

Toowoomba’s Will Brown, embarking on his first Enduro Cup campaign, put Anton De Pasquale’s No.99 Erebus Holden to the top of the timesheets in Friday’s final hitout.

Just 0.0062 of a second separated the three fastest, with rookie Brown in illustrious company.

Second behind him, just 0.0032s adrift was two time Le Mans 24 Hours winner and reigning World Endurance Champion - but fellow Supercars rookie - Earl Bamber in Shane van Gisbergen’s No.97 Red Bull Holden, while third quickest was four time Bathurst 1000 winner Steven Richards in Craig Lowndes’ No.888 Autobarn Holden.

Although it wasn’t a perfect session for Brown.

He took the No.99 for a trip through the sand trap at Dandenong Road Corner late in the session after locking a brake.

“Tell me about it; I thought he was going to tear my rear wing off!” joked Richards, who’d been immediately ahead of him.

Brown managed to avoid getting bogged, keeping the throttle in and doing a lap of the sand trap in the reverse direction to find his way back onto the track.

“I just didn’t want to get stuck!” Brown said with a laugh.

Along with Bamber and Richards, Brown was surrounded by some of the sport’s biggest names at the end of day press conference, including Lowndes, Jamie Whincup, Paul Dumbrell and Shane van Gisbergen.

“To be sitting up here up alongside these guys that I was watching throughout racing go-karts, it’s pretty cool,” he said.

“You never thought you’d ever race Supercars, it was always a dream.”

The final session passed without Dumbrell’s new lap record from the morning session being troubled, the No.1 Red Bull Holden setting the two fastest times of the day in each drivers’ hands and the only car to dip into the 67 second bracket.

The Walkinshaw Andretti United cars of Jack Perkins and Warren Luff were fourth and fifth ahead of Dumbrell, while the first of the non-Holdens belonged to Alex Rullo in seventh, just 0.15s adrift of Brown’s time aboard Simona De Silvestro’s No.78 Harvey Norman Nissan.

The cars hit the track for one more practice session on Saturday ahead of qualifying and the Races to the Grid, setting the starting order for Sunday’s Sandown 500.