Hyundai's Will Brown romps home in first race at The Bend

Young Will Brown reinforced his class and commitment with a rampaging run to victory in the first of three carsales TCR Australia Series sprints at The Bend.

Hyundai’s Brown, who has already claimed the series, has not released his choker hold on the opposition, running home an easy winner ahead of the Volkswagen driver Aaron Cameron and Honda star Tony D’Alberto in the first of three 14-lap sprints in South Australia.

Brown’s list of successes now runs to seven wins and 12 podiums from 19 TCR starts, with two more races on Sunday.

The Queenslander’s job was made easier when Dylan O’Keefe, who was set to start from pole position, was still parked in the pits for steering repairs to his Alfa Giulietta when the race began.

He was under early pressure in his i30N, but quickly gapped D’Alberto in second with his Honda Civic Type R as Cameron went forward through the closing laps.

There were plenty of incidents, as Liam McAdam crashed his Audi into Chelsea Angelo’s Holden Astra on the opening lap to trigger a safety car.

The damage to both cars has ruled them out for the rest of the weekend. The incident has seen McAdam docked 40 series points for reckless driving.

Nathan Morcom lost the left-right wheel from his Hyundai, and Barton Mawer damaged the rear suspension on his Subaru WRX after an unsuccessful lunge at Iain McDougall in an Audi on the final lap.

D’Alberto’s Honda team-mate John Martin was one of the drivers to push steadily forward, finishing sixth from the back of the grid, as James Moffat also moved up to ninth after breaking an engine mount in qualifying, while gamer-racer Matt Simmons finished 12th from the tail in a Subaru WRX.

The new Peugeot 308 TCR car that arrived into the this week has been plagued with electrical dramas and unable to complete a session. Components are being flown in from France that will see the car ready to race tomorrow. Driver Aurélien Comte will start Race 2 from the back of the grid.

Race 2 and Race 3 will be held tomorrow, streamed live on the TCR Australia website and live, free and in HD on SBS.

CLICK HERE to secure your tickets to The Bend Motorsport Park.

QUOTES

Will Brown
Driver, HMO Customer Racing

“I was able to get a good start and lead into the first corner and maintain it from there,” said Will Brown.

“While we’ve already wrapped up the championship, we wanted to come to The Bend, have fun and win races so we’re really happy to kick the weekend off with a win.

“The tyre bank is not a problem, it’s just that the front tyres, if we have enough to put on a new set on the front each race, but, it’s definitely something we’ll look at overnight because if we got another safety car period in that race I would have come under pressure from Aaron Cameron.”

Aaron Cameron
Driver, MPC Volkswagen

“It was good to pass Tony D’Alberto and finish second and a great result to assist our hopes of fighting for second in the championship,” said Aaron Cameron.

“We caught up to Will Brown by the end of the race and we still have more in the car for tomorrow.

“I’m really hoping we can get a race win tomorrow, that’s the goal and I really believe we have the pace in the Volkswagen Golf to make it happen tomorrow.”

Tony D'Alberto
Driver, Wall Racing Honda

“I did a bit of practice yesterday to get my mind set for the race start in the Honda Civic Type-R TCR. I’ve done a few starts in a Supercar recently and the TCR car requires a different process,” said Tony D’Alberto.

“We got a great launch and I was almost in the lead off the start, I thought of making a bigger lunge into Turn 1 but Will Brown just got around the outside of me and we made slight contact but it was all pretty fair.

“We didn’t quite have the pace in the race, Aaron Cameron especially had good pace to pull away from me and caught back up to Will Brown.

“We’ve got a bit of work to do overnight but at least we’ve started off the right end of the field.”