In a linear analysis for brake squeal, an unwanted type of sound in the kHz‐range produced during the braking process of vehicles, usually only the stability of the system is examined. However, with the appearance of additional stochastic excitation, the vibration of a linear system with subcritical self‐excitation, i.e. having self‐excitation but due to damping still an asymptotically stable trivial solution, may be large enough to produce a squeal sound. In this paper, this hypothesis of stochastically reinforced self‐excitation is supported by a case study on a wobbling disk model for brake squeal, which includes both circulatory and gyroscopic forces. For this example, the Fokker‐Planck equation is solved and numerical integrations are performed. A short parameter study is carried out to examine the effect of damping and gyroscopic terms on these stochastically reinforced self‐excitation. The results suggest that this possibility should be considered additionally to classical explanations of brake squeal.