The Supercars champion became the first Australian in 50 years to win the New Zealand Grand Prix at Highlands yesterday.
Brown, the first Australian to win since Warwick Brown’s victory in 1975, comfortably steered his Giles Motorsport Toyota FT60 to a 2sec victory ahead Kiwi Zack Scoular, who is also the rookie champion of the Castrol Toyota FR Oceania Championship.
British driver and series champion Arvid Lindblad, driving a spare car, finished third.
Brown skated past fellow Australian Broc Feeney, who was in pole position heading in, and held his nerve for the 27 laps to become the eighth Australian to win the race.
"I was rooted. The first 10 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, breathe 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.
"I’ve loved racing in the open wheelers and the NZ fans have been great."
Lap two was shaping nicely 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.
Patrick Heuzenroeder — who was involved in a crash earlier in the day — was forced to pit at the end of lap nine and retire with damage to his rear suspension after light contact with the wall.
At the hallway mark Brown had stretched his lead over Scoular marginally, and despite Scoular closing the gap late, Brown held on for the flag.
Heuzenroeder won race one of the Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship and Nikita Johnson won race two.
Hugo Allan won the Bridgestone GR86 Championship race one and Josh Bethune won race two. — APL
