Norbert Michelisz claimed victory in the opening FIA TCR World Tour race at The Bend Motorsport Park in Australia, after a five-second jump start penalty demoted race-long leader Mikel Azcona to second.
Azcona had earlier in the day claimed pole position by a huge seven tenths of a second from his Hyundai team-mate, after the TCR World Tour teams had raced to get their cars ready on Friday following the delay of international shipping to the circuit.
Drivers thus had to contend with a truncated schedule, and prior to qualifying they had been limited to just a 19-minute shakedown late on Friday followed by a 30-minute practice session very early on Saturday morning.
At the start of the race, Azcona was one of a quartet of drivers who crept before the lights went out, earning him a five-second time penalty. The Spaniard still made a good start to lead from team-mate Michelisz, and as the race progressed he extended his advantage at the front, and by lap seven had extended a 4.6-second lead.
It looked as if Azcona would comfortably pull clear by more than the five seconds required to negate his penalty, but on the following lap he lost almost two seconds, and despite growing the margin again in the second half of the race, Azcona just fell short of having the required advantage – crossing the finish line just 4.99 seconds in front of Michelisz and giving the Hungarian victory by a mere 0.0024 seconds.
Azcona had done enough to claim second, however, and BRC Racing thus enjoyed a 1-2 result on their first visit to the circuit.
The podium was completed by Cyan Racing’s Yann Ehrlacher, who was within a second of Michelisz, in a quiet opening race for the series.
Josh Buchan was the leading TCR Australia driver in fourth, having performed impressively in qualifying. The reigning TCR Australia champion lost out to Cyan Racing’s Thed Björk at the start, but going on to the second lap dived inside Björk to reclaim the position, which he held to the finish.
GOAT Racing’s Ignacio Montenegro also muscled past Björk to take fifth into Turn 6, the duo swapping paint in a move which the stewards said would be investigated after the race.
Björk thus took sixth, but only lost ground to team-mate Ehrlacher in the title race as he finished in front of his other chief rivals to move up to third in the standings.
Cyan Racing’s Ma Qing Hua was seventh, finishing where he started in a sedate race for the Chinese driver, ahead of GOAT Racing’s Esteban Guerrieri in eighth, who has now fallen to 45 points behind series leader Ehrlacher.
The top ten was completed by Ashley Seward Motorsport’s Cody Burcher, who had a strong race on his TCR début in the team’s Lynk & Co, and BRC Racing’s Néstor Girolami.
SP Compétition’s Aurélien Comte was 11th in the team’s sole CUPRA (regular team-mate John Filippi being absent after a late withdrawal from the event), initially crossing the line ahead of Burcher before Comte had a five-second penalty was applied for his false start.
Cyan Racing’s Santiago Urrutia took 12th, the Uruguayan having started 11th but dropping five places on the opening lap with a poor getaway – after also jumping the start and then failing to get away from the line.
Urrutia progressively recovered past the majority of TCR Australia competitors during the race and in the end his penalty was inconsequential to his result due to having enough of a margin over the chasing cars.
Zac Soutar was the leading Audi driver in 13th and completed the TCR Australia podium, ahead of Brad Harris’ Honda in 14th.
HMO Customer Racing’s Lo Sze Ho had been running in 12th early on, but went deep into a corner on lap four and dropped four places, the Hong Kong driver eventually finishing in 17th.
Race two is scheduled to get underway at 12:00 local time on Sunday (04:30 CEST, 03:30 BST).
Race result
| POS | NO | CL | NAT | DRIVER | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | BEST | GD |
| 1 | 105 | WT |  |
Norbert MICHELISZ | BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 13 | 13 LAPS | 1:57.348 | 2 |
| 2 | 196 | WT |  |
Mikel AZCONA | BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 13 | 0.0024 | 1:56.481 | 1 |
| 3 | 168 | WT |  |
Yann EHRLACHER | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR | 13 | 0.8301 | 1:57.752 | 3 |
| 4 | 30 | AU |  |
Josh BUCHAN | HMO Customer Racing | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 13 | 1.6752 | 1:57.954 | 4 |
| 5 | 123 | WT |  |
Ignacio MONTENEGRO | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 13 | 2.5143 | 1:57.723 | 6 |
| 6 | 111 | WT |  |
Thed BJÖRK | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR | 13 | 4.7738 | 1:57.798 | 5 |
| 7 | 155 | WT |  |
MA Qing Hua | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR | 13 | 5.4432 | 1:57.817 | 7 |
| 8 | 186 | WT | |
Esteban GUERRIERI | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 13 | 9.6916 | 1:58.282 | 8 |
| 9 | 36 | AU | |
Cody BURCHER | Ashley Seward Motorsport | Lynk & Co 03 TCR | 13 | 12.3076 | 1:58.400 | 13 |
| 10 | 129 | WT | |
Néstor GIROLAMI | BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 13 | 12.9368 | 1:58.375 | 9 |
| 11 | 107 | WT | |
Aurélien COMTE | SP Compétition | CUPRA Leon VZ TCR | 13 | 16.7555 | 1:58.244 | 10 |
| 12 | 112 | WT |  |
Santiago URRUTIA | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR | 13 | 25.3224 | 1:58.672 | 11 |
| 13 | 210 | AU | |
Zac SOUTAR | Tufflift Racing TSM | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 13 | 28.1082 | 1:59.486 | 16 |
| 14 | 74 | AU | |
Brad HARRIS | Exclusive Switchboards | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 13 | 29.6614 | 1:58.858 | 14 |
| 15 | 5 | AU | |
Ryan MACMILLAN | HMO Customer Racing | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 13 | 29.8444 | 1:58.792 | 12 |
| 16 | 233 | AU | |
Jordan COX | Garry Rogers Motorsport | Peugeot 308 P51 TCR | 13 | 30.6373 | 1:59.567 | 17 |
| 17 | 281 | AU |  |
LO Sze Ho | HMO Customer Racing | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 13 | 37.9726 | 1:59.889 | 15 |
| 18 | 22 | AU | |
Iain MCDOUGALL | Challenge Motorsport | Audi RS3 LMS TCR | 13 | 45.2960 | 2:00.186 | 18 |