The new tab hangs on the Brave browser for a few seconds. The current behavior with Brave v1.5+ is browser freeze till the new tab comes online.
I suspect the bug is in loading the new tab content from somewhere. An easy fix is to override new tab content with an extension. I tried the following and the tabs open immediately.
Tab Override
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/new-tab-override/fjcmlondipcnnpmbcollgifldmajfonf/related
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