Will Brown prevails in red flag-interrupted opening race at Sydney

MPC’s Will Brown took victory in the opening TCR World Tour / TCR Australia race of the weekend at Sydney Motorsport Park, which was affected by a lengthy red flag stoppage due to rain arriving early on.

The Peugeot of Ben Bargwanna lined up on pole position, and led for the opening lap, but on the second tour Brown, who had started alongside on the front row of the grid, made his move for the lead at Turn 2.

BRC Racing’s Mikel Azcona followed through, but started to gradually fall back from the leading Audi until the end of lap three, when the safety car was called upon to retrieve Zac Soutar’s stricken Audi, which had retired from the race with damage to the front-left wheel.

After three laps behind the safety car, racing resumed on lap six – but on briefly, as the changing weather meant the circuit conditions had changed substantially since the last racing lap.

More than half the field subsequently went straight on when they arrived at the first braking zone at Turn 2, and the race was quickly red-flagged to allow the field to return to the pits for a change of rubber.

After a delay of almost twenty minutes, and a further three laps behind the safety car on resumption, racing resumed on lap 11 with Brown leading the way, the order restored to that prior to the stoppage, despite Brown being one of the drivers to have gone straight on at the second corner earlier.

Azcona ultimately had no answer for Brown’s pace, and the 2019 champion went on to win by over seven seconds ahead of the Hyundai driver, who has in turn closed in on the lead of the TCR World Tour drivers’ standings – despite the Spaniard also receiving a five second penalty for weaving behind the safety car, which dropped him to third.

Cyan Racing’s Yann Ehrlacher would have completed the podium, but the Lynk & Co driver was also handed a five-second time penalty for weaving when the safety car lights had gone out and that subsequently promoted team-mate Ma Qing Hua onto the podium, becoming second for the Chinese ace after Azcona’s penalty.

Ehrlacher had started in 13^th, having missed out on getting into Q2, but the Frenchman gained two places on the opening lap, and a further two in the laps before the race was paused.

He then made steady progress in the remainder of the race, taking third from Comtoyou Racing’s Rob Huff just two laps from the finish, with a robust move which also allowed Ma to get through as well.

Huff was fourth after the penalty for Ehrlacher was applied, ahead of team-mate Frédéric Vervisch in fifth, with Ehrlacher classified in sixth with the addition of his five seconds.

Second in the TCR Australia series was GRM’s Aaron Cameron, seventh overall, who had a strong race to move up from 17^th on the grid, having put pressure on Huff late in the race.

BRC’s Norbert Michelisz was eighth, ahead of Cyan’s Thed Björk and Wall Racing’s Néstor Girolami.

Girolami had a fight on his hands in the closing laps to hold on to tenth, the Argentine having been running in fourth four laps from the finish before his Honda developed an issue which saw it lose straight-line speed, allowing others to breeze by.

In the final lap, GRM’s Jordan Cox tried in vain to take the much-coveted tenth from Girolami, but he couldn’t get by. Thus, Girolami will start from the partially reversed-grid pole for race two, with practice pace-setter Björk alongside.

Cox took the chequered flag in 11^th, with Tom Oliphant in 12^th and fourth overall in TCR Australia.

Reigning TCR Australia champion Tony D’Alberto had a turbulent race – the Honda driver was tapped into a high-speed spin by Michelisz on the second lap, spinning through the Turn 1 gravel at high speed and luckily avoiding the barriers. He ended the race in 15^th.

Erstwhile race leader Bargwanna eventually finished down in 18^th after being in the thick of the action in the mid-part of the race.

The race saw two retirements – Soutar after two laps with wheel damage, whilst Cyan’s Santiago Urrutia also retired, having had to pit for repairs to a front-left upright on the second lap.

Race two is scheduled to get underway at 16:05 local time (06:05 CET, 05:05 GMT) on Saturday.

Revised race result

POS	NO	CL	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	BEST	GD
1	9	AU		Will BROWN	MPC Team LIQUI MOLY	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	17	51:07.3619	1:37.128	2
2	155	WT		MA Qing Hua	Cyan Racing Lynk & Co	Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR	17	11.6553	1:37.709	6
3	196	WT		Mikel AZCONA	BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	17	12.3892	1:37.204	3
4	179	WT		Rob HUFF	Audi Sport Comtoyou	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	17	15.6957	1:37.151	5
5	122	WT		Frédéric VERVISCH	Audi Sport Comtoyou	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	17	15.9925	1:37.461	19
6	168	WT		Yann EHRLACHER	Cyan Racing Lynk & Co	Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR	17	16.4280	1:37.042	13
7	18	AU		Aaron CAMERON	Team Valvoline GRM	Peugeot 308 TCR	17	16.6877	1:37.135	17
8	105	WT		Norbert MICHELISZ	BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	17	19.4938	1:37.512	8
9	111	WT		Thed BJÖRK	Cyan Racing Lynk & Co	Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR	17	19.9734	1:37.605	15
10	129	WT		Néstor GIROLAMI	Honda Wall Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	17	20.6692	1:37.677	11
11	33	AU		Jordan COX	Schaeffler GRM	Peugeot 308 TCR	17	20.9922	1:38.080	21
12	115	AU		Tom OLIPHANT	Autoglym / Ashley Seward Motorsport	Lynk & Co 03 TCR	17	27.8268	1:38.113	18
13	14	AU		Lachlan MINEEFF	Purple Sector	Audi RS3 LMS TCR	17	28.6374	1:38.725	23
14	130	AU		Bailey SWEENY	HMO Customer Racing	Hyundai i30 N TCR	17	30.0708	1:37.739	4
15	1	AU		Tony D’ALBERTO	Honda Wall Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	17	31.6319	1:38.750	14
16	30	AU		Josh BUCHAN	HMO Customer Racing	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	17	32.4393	1:37.080	7
17	74	AU		Brad HARRIS	Exclusive Switchboards / Wall Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FK7 TCR	17	37.2872	1:37.468	20
18	71	AU		Ben BARGWANNA	Burson Auto Parts Racing	Peugeot 308 TCR	17	38.1428	1:38.887	1
19	4	AU		Jimmy CLAIRET	Hangcha Forklifts	Peugeot 308 TCR	17	39.7776	1:38.735	12
20	22	AU		Iain MCDOUGALL	Challenge Motorsport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR	17	43.6663	1:39.291	10
21	76	AU		Will HARRIS	Exclusive Switchboards / Wall Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FK7 TCR	17	53.7850	1:38.194	22
R	112	WT		Santiago URRUTIA	Cyan Racing Lynk & Co	Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR	12	DNF	1:49.414	16
R	110	AU		Zac SOUTAR	Team Soutar Motorsport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	2	DNF	1:37.562	9
NS	41	AU		Kody GARLAND	Valvoline Racing GRM	Peugeot 308 TCR	–	DNS	N/A