{"id":456836,"date":"2026-02-04T01:32:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T01:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/456836\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T01:32:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T01:32:14","slug":"will-brown-to-take-over-888-from-craig-lowndes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/456836\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Brown to take over #888 from Craig Lowndes"},"content":{"rendered":"

CRAIG Lowndes<\/a> has passed the baton over to Will Brown<\/a> for future use of the iconic #888.<\/p>\n

It was made clear when the Lowndes\/Supercheap Auto wildcard was confirmed as heading to Team 18 that the triple-eight digits wouldn\u2019t follow<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They will however remain active via Brown, who has been dubbed Triple Eight\u2019s \u2018new Lowndes\u2019 by team co-owner Tony Quinn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Brown\u2019s previous two seasons with Triple Eight have come using the #87 and #1 (the latter as reward for winning the 2024 championship; Chaz Mostert<\/a> will have that honour this time around).<\/p>\n

\u201cThis number is iconic to the team,\u201d said Lowndes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn motor racing and in sports sponsors come and go, liveries change, kits change. But this is Triple Eight Race Engineering, that\u2019s the number and it\u2019s iconic with the success that comes out of this workshop.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first arrived I was lucky enough to carry the number and to see the legacy of the number continue on, it\u2019s an iconic number for the sport, and it\u2019s an iconic number for the team, so it\u2019s going to be really great to see the car running around with that number on the side.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know Will pretty well; to have him carry on that legacy, I think that he\u2019ll do it proud. He\u2019s obviously a great young talent which does sound strange already being a Supercars champion, he\u2019s a proven young talent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the new change of manufacturer, the new change of car, the new change of number, it\u2019s all a good fit and I think at the start of the season he\u2019ll come out punching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown will drive his brand-new #888 Red Bull Ampol Mustang for the first time early next week at Queensland Raceway.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s cool to know I\u2019m going into 2026 with such an iconic number on my car,\u201d said the 27-year-old.<\/p>\n

\"\"Will Brown. Pic: Mark Walker<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously there\u2019s a lot of history there, I\u2019ve watched the #888 race around for years now ever since I started watching the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me there wasn\u2019t a question mark, I\u2019ve had two great years already with the team \u2013 one awesome year with the championship win and one great year last year fighting all the way to Adelaide, so it meant a lot to me to start the conversation about 2026 and my race number.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Craig leaving the team, he thought it best that the #888 number stay with Triple Eight, he was really keen for it to stay here.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a really easy conversation to have knowing how much it meant to him. I\u2019m really excited to go racing with that number.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown\u2019s teammate Broc Feeney<\/a> will continue on in the #88 that had long been associated with his predecessor Jamie Whincup<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CRAIG Lowndes has passed the baton over to Will Brown for future use of the iconic #888. It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-456836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}