which led to emotional scenes on the podium<\/a> and intense discussions in the paddock.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/888-Brown-EV-09-26-JM2_6958.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Will Brown scores victory on Saturday at Ipswich. Image: Supplied<\/p>\n
\u201cAndrew had made the decision [weeks earlier] and then after that crazy day on Saturday, obviously he questioned, \u2018hey, am I doing the right thing?\u2019\u201d Whincup said.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The announcement] was supposed to go out at 6:30pm Saturday night. I said, \u2018mate, we don\u2019t need to rush this, let\u2019s have a good think about it\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen Sunday morning, he\u2019s like, \u2018no, I\u2019ve had overnight to think about it. It\u2019s the right call\u2019, and then we made that announcement Sunday morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Realistically, unless Brown himself had intervened, the die was already cast.<\/p>\n
Cauchi was signed and due to spend Sunday at the track being reintroduced to the team, while an embargoed announcement had already been distributed to media.<\/p>\n
Whincup acknowledged the difficulty in changing race engineers mid-season, but said there was no pushback from Brown, who was part of efforts to recruit Cauchi.<\/p>\n
\u201cWill is pretty easy come, easy go,\u201d added Whincup. \u201cI think if Andrew was leaving, he would have been concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/2026-Enduro-Test-Day-QR-Z81_9679.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
David Cauchi took over #888 for Tuesday\u2019s pre-enduro test. Image: Richard Gresham<\/p>\n
The signing of Cauchi has been painted by some as an obvious move given his credentials and availability after departing Grove Racing at the end of 2025.<\/p>\n
However, the fact he\u2019s been hired on a part-time basis, mixing race weekend duties with his regular job with a company that runs a fleet of tyre stores, is a big shift of thinking for Triple Eight.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re willing to try new things,\u201d said Whincup.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could be the best thing ever, it could be a disaster. We\u2019ll give it a five-round trial, and if it works well, we\u2019ll continue. If it doesn\u2019t, we won\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cCauchi\u2019s got to enjoy it as well. He\u2019ll either go, \u2018yeah, I love doing this\u2019. Or \u2018no, it\u2019s not for me\u2019. We\u2019ll see how it goes in the next five rounds.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrew Edwards and Will Brown celebrate pole position on Sunday. Image: Mark Horsburgh The team revealed on Sunday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":870192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[438633,64,63,95585,806,805,803,804,12357,85,14594],"class_list":["post-870191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-andrew-edwards","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-jamie-whincup","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-slot1","tag-sports","tag-will-brown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870191","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=870191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Triple](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Triple-Eight-change.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAndrew Edwards and Will Brown celebrate pole position on Sunday. Image: Mark Horsburgh <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/2026-Enduro-Test-Day-QR-Z81_0074.jpg\")
<\/p>\n