The reigning Supercars champion Will Brown has explained his forthcoming return to single-seater racing is to test himself “against the best” drivers who aspire for future careers in Formula 1.
Brown, who clinched a dramatic maiden Supercars title in 2024, will enter three rounds in the 2025 Formula Regional Oceania Championship - competing in the opening two races and season finale across January and February.
The series - which has a number of regional branches across the world - is known for being a testing ground for future F1 talents, with Liam Lawson, Yuki Tsunoda and Franco Colapinto all contesting the Oceania championship in 2020.
In 2025 it will have a 20-car field which is its most since COVID-19 and Brown sees it as an opportunity to test his ability across different racing disciplines.
“Single-seaters are a bit of an itch I want to scratch and there’s no better place to do it than in this championship,” said Brown, who won the Supercars championship with an incredible comeback drive from last at November’s Adelaide finale.
“I was watching Formula 2 and Formula 3 races earlier this year and thought it would be great to race in a competitive field of single-seaters once again.
“I’m not coming to take part, I’m coming to New Zealand to win. It’s no different to why I have wanted to try NASCAR and TCR.
“As a racing driver, I want to test myself against the best and I know this championship has a fantastic record of helping produce some world-class drivers.”
The 26-year-old, who also contested one round in the 2024 NASCAR Cup season, will race for four-time series champions Giles Motorsport aboard a Toyota FT-60, six years after Brown’s last single-seater appearance.
That was in S5000, where he drove the full 2019 season which included a podium at The Bend Motorsport Park, three years after Brown won the Australian Formula 4 Championship.
Brown has had a long-standing interest in contesting Formula Regional, but the opportunity finally arrived this year when Tony Quinn took over the promotion of the New Zealand tracks he will be racing - Taupo International Motorsport Park and Highlands Motorsport Park.
“The desire to have another go started to look like a much more realistic possibility,” said Brown of the man who is a shareholder in the Supercars team he races for, Triple Eight Race Engineering.
“I’m delighted to be part of those three weekends and am looking forward to some excellent racing.”
This will not be the first time a reigning Supercars champion has raced single-seaters, as three-time series winner Shane van Gisbergen took an impressive victory at the 2021 New Zealand Grand Prix.
So Brown is determined to emulate the Supercars legend as he hopes “to get some testing in a single-seater at some stage”.
“But I know Taupo well from Supercars,” he added. “I’ve done some laps at Hampton Downs in a Toyota 86 and I’ve done a few laps at Highlands as well, so the tracks will not be new to me.”
