There were a total of eight races at Symmons Plains on Saturday, with plenty of close racing and some typical hairpin crashes exciting the crowd who were braving icy conditions by the end of the day.

Brown praised the team following his wire-to-wire victory after the win, claiming the main challenge on Saturday was staying focused.

"[This year's] been awesome. Any time you get a pole position, or a win in this category is fantastic," he said.

"I think the competition's as strong as ever, you saw today how close it was during qualifying and all that, so you can't really make a mistake out there. That's the hardest thing.

"I'd rather be in the lead, you can run your own race, just do your own lap times and try to conserve the tyres however you want and you're not really trying to attack anyone or anything like that."

A moment that changed the course of the race occurred early at the turn-four hairpin when Jack Le Brocq broke slightly too late, resulting in a small nudge to the back of championship leader Brodie Kostecki's car.

Cam Waters - who was driving the lone Ford Mustang at the top of the field - was exiting the corner just as Kostecki was trying to recover, meaning the Erebus driver clipped the back of Waters and quickly found the fence.

While the incident spelled the end of Kostecki's winning chances, it provided an opportunity for eventual second-placed driver Andre Heimgartner, who was thrilled with the result following a difficult weekend at Perth.

"We went back to how I like driving the car and what we used mostly last year, we got a bit misled from the [Australian Grand Prix]," he said.

"It's great to have some good speed, obviously to get second and have good race pace."

The Tasmanian round also marked Heimgartner's 100^th in Supercars, but the New Zealander said there will not be any extra celebrations.

"It is a pretty awesome achievement to think about, growing up as a Kiwi Supercars is such a far-fetched thing, so to get 100 rounds is pretty awesome," he said.

The hairpin incident, which also included Broc Feeney turning around Chaz Mostert - meaning the latter was out of the race and the former sent to the back of the field - opened up an opportunity for reigning champion Shane Van Gisbergen to gain some much-needed points.

At a track where Red Bull Racing has found consistent success, a bold pit strategy gave Van Gisbergen yet another advantage as he would finish on far fresher tyres than the cars he was chasing.

The serial race winner proved his aggressive overtaking skills on the final lap against Waters, stealing the final step on the podium from him on the penultimate corner.

The experienced Kiwi spoke with brutal honesty about his car's performance. "We had no speed, I just hauled it around, but after the stop my car did get a bit better," he said.

"Days like today, when you're not the fastest car it's good to have some luck sometimes and I just stayed out of trouble and tried to do the best I could."

After years of relative domination in Supercars, Van Gisbergen did admit he was enjoying trying to get number 97 back to the front of the pack.

"I love a challenge and it is a challenge this year for sure trying to figure out what makes the car tick," he said.

"I like working hard in the truck and at the workshop, trying to come up with different things to understand what makes the car faster, it's been cool. We ran a pretty similar setup at most tracks last year. So this year, we're trying to find the feet of it and it's a good challenge."

Earlier in the day, qualifying was a predictably tight affair, with less than eight tenths of a second separating all 25 drivers in the first session.

Anton De Pasquale had a frustrating start to the day with clutch issues thwarting any chance of a strong starting position - finishing 22^nd.

There were plenty more high-profile exits in the second session; veterans Mark Winterbottom and James Courtney left with spots 14 and 15 respectively, while Mostert - who sits second in the drivers' championship - missed out on the top 10 by one position.

With the final session dominated by Chevrolet Camaros to a ratio of 9-1, Waters would have left the track happy to start third in his Mustang, finishing behind Le Brocq and Brown.

Hamish Fitzsimmons' incident at the turn-four hairpin shortly followed by Ross McGregor's shunt with the barrier coming out of turn three ensured the first race was heavily interrupted by the safety car.

While racing did eventually restart, it would end the same way it began, with multiple cars impacted by a crash coming out of the hairpin.

In the end, Marco Giltrap - who had been ahead of the drama throughout the race - continued his stellar weekend, while Ronan Murphy made it a Kiwi top-two.

It was a second one-two for New Zealand in the afternoon race, with Giltrap doubling up and Zac Stichbury just behind.

Launceston's Harrison Sellars consolidated his respectable qualifying performance by finishing 11^th in the first race of the weekend for the Formula Fords.

With the race starting shortly before 8.30am, conditions were near freezing as drivers struggled to bring their tyres up to temperature. In the end, it was Team Sonic's Jake Santalucia who was first to cross the finish line, despite qualifying fourth and not breaking the 57-second lap-time barrier, unlike many around him.

In race two, Eddy Beswick and Daniel Frougas had a scary moment which meant both had their race ended, but it was fortunate no one else was affected.

Due to the lengthy clean-up, there was only a one lap remaining when the race restarted, with Santalucia holding on to finish off a perfect Saturday. Sellars had an improved afternoon, finishing eighth.

Joel Heinrich delivered a clinical reminder of why he is a four-time champion of the Aussie Racing Cars series, avoiding the drama behind him in what was a contested field to comfortably win the first race of the weekend.

Turn six was proving the centre of the action throughout the races, especially in the morning where Matt Gooding and Leslie Corish both came unstuck.

The afternoon race was far cleaner, with some brilliant bumper-to-bumper driving among the top three giving the crowd plenty of entertainment.

Reece Chapman was putting pressure on Heinrich for much of the race and even took the lead through turn six as they headed into the final few laps.

With Ryder Quinn waiting patiently behind, Heinrich proved his championship-winning worth as he took back the lead at the hairpin the very next lap.

While Chapman was always within a car's length, Heinrich would not be denied his second win of the day.

Tim Mann backed up his pole position on Friday with a commanding 10-second win on Saturday morning, creating plenty of momentum for the category's second race on Sunday.

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