Garth Tander gives Audi first TCR Australia win
The competitors of TCR Australia delivered another thrilling race and Garth Tander took his and Audi’s maiden win in the series at The Bend. Will Brown completed a great recovery after starting from the 16th place on the grid and finished second, which helped him to stretch his leading margin in the standings, while his closest rival Dylan O’Keeffe retired.
At the start on the damp track, Tony D’Alberto took the lead from James Moffat who was fighting with O’Keeffe, Jordan Cox and Tander. During the opening lap D’Alberto spun off and soon afterwards Cox hit Moffat and sent him off. The safety car was deployed.
When racing resumed, Tander was leading from Cox and Brown who had recovered. On lap 6, Tander made a mistake and dropped to fourth behind Cox, Brown and John Martin. O’Keeffe and Aaron Cameron were closing the gap from the leading quartet. On lap 7, Martin overtook Brown for second and on lap 11 he took the lead from Cox who also lost second to Tander, while O’Keeffe retired with a turbo issue after posting the fastest lap.
On the final lap, Martin’s pace faded and so Tander went to take the win from Cox, Brown, Cameron and Martin. However, Cox was demoted to seventh by a 10-second time penalty for the incident with Moffat who recovered to finish ninth, the penalty promoted Brown and Cameron to second and third. However, after the race Cameron was given a 28-second penalty for overtaking during the safety car period; he dropped to 12th and Martin inherited the third place.
Race 2 will start tomorrow at 12:45 local time (05:15 CET) with the grid based on Race 1 result; Race 3 will follow one hour later. Both will be streamed at www.tcr-series.com and www.tcr-series.tv.
Race 1
1. Garth Tander (Melbourne Performance, Audi RS 3 LMS), 12 laps
2. Will Brown (HMO Customer Racing, Hyundai i30 N), 1.008
3. John Martin (Wall Racing, Honda Civic FK7), 7.4299
4. Nathan Morcom (HMO Customer Racing, Hyundai i30 N), 8.8254
5. Chris Pither (Garry Rogers Motorsport, Renault Mégane RS), 22.8618
Championship points
1. Brown 280 pts; 2. O’Keeffe 192; 3. Cameron 166
