A win at Mount Panorama on Sunday would put the Will Brown within touching distance of a maiden championship, 18 years after first hopping behind the wheel of his mother’s Mini.
Will Brown has been mastering a manual transmission since he was eight years old. The model was a Mini, the owner was his mum, and the destination was Prince Henry Drive, a one-way street not far from his family home in the Queensland city of Toowoomba.
“GT Falcons, A9X Toranas, Brock Commodores, Lotus Cortinas,” says Shane. “To keep them all running we’d drive around Prince Henry. One time Will was seen driving a car – he would’ve been 10 years old – and the police came up to the house and said, ‘Your son’s been seen driving’. My dad used to let me drive and ride motorbikes, and I suppose we’ve probably been fairly liberal parents, but it used to happen a lot more. And where we were, you could do that.
Which is refreshing for a down-to-earth larrikin described by his father as “a very likable kid who loves pleasing people … until he pulls a helmet on and hops in the car, then it’s game on”.That flash competitive streak was apparently evident during family board games – which he hated losing – and basically any outdoor activity. Brown and his older siblings, Emma and Tim, were into everything as kids, including water-skiing and riding their horses and PeeWee motorbikes.
So much so that he caught the attention of Bob Power, the father of IndyCar driver Will Power, who lived up the road from the Browns and still had his son’s Formula Ford cars. He teed up a test day with engineer Brett Francis, Brown blitzed it and was advised to enter the inaugural national junior series, the 2015 Formula 4, due to start in a fortnight’s time.Emma Kemp
But the family found that the better Brown performed, the more people were willing to help. With connections, suggestions and equipment. His third place overall in the 2015 F4 earned him the rookie of the year title, and the following year he joined championship-winning team BRM and recorded six race wins and 12 podiums on his way to winning the 2016 championship himself.
The solicitor of the family is Emma, and Tim is a commercial pilot. Brown has followed in the latter’s footsteps, getting his private pilot licence five years ago and buying two light planes. He has flown them to races in Townsville, Newcastle and Eastern Creek in western Sydney, and taken Red Bull teammates Broc Feeney and Whincup as passengers to functions in Bundaberg and various other places.
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