Will Brown sets his seventh seal on TCR Australia

TCR Australia’s first ever champion Will Brown set his seventh seal on the championship by claiming victory in Race 1 of the season’s finale at The Bend.
Brown benefitted from the technical issue that prevented pole sitter Dylan O’Keeffe from starting, took the lead into Turn 2 and pulled away from the rest of the field to claim his seventh race win.
O’Keeffe was missing from the grid because of a power steering failure and, to add insult to injury for Ashley Seward Motorsport, the second Alfa Romeo Giulietta of new recruit James Allen stalled before the formation lap and didn’t join the race.
At the start, Tony D’Alberto dived inside Brown, but the latter took the lead into T2, while Aaron Cameron, Chris Pither and Jordan Cox moved into P3, P4 and P5 ahead of Nathan Morcom.
At the end of the first lap Liam McAdam’s Audi and Chelsea Angelo’s Holden Astra were eliminated in an incident that involved André Heimgartner who rejoined at the back. The safety car was deployed for three laps and when racing resumed D’Alberto and Cameron delivered a close fight for second, which gave Brown the opportunity to pull away. In lap 7, Cameron passed D’Alberto for P2, at the same time Morcom lost a front wheel and went off while chasing Cox for P5.
The top positions did not change until the end, and so Brown won from Cameron, D’Alberto, Pither, Cox and John Martin who had passed Jason Bright for P6 on lap 8.
The results meant that D’Alberto and Cameron advanced to second and third in the standings, while O’Keeffe dropped from second to fourth.
Race 2 will start tomorrow at 12:40 local time (03:10 CET) with the grid based on Race 1 result; Race 3 will follow one hour later. Both will be streamed live at www.tcr-series.com and www.tcr-series.tv.

Race 1
1. Will Brown (HMO Customer Racing, Hyundai i30 N), 12 laps
2. Aaron Cameron (Melbourne Performance, Volkswagen Golf GTI), 1.1710
3. Tony D’Alberto (Wall Racing, Honda Civic FK7), 5.6992
4. Chris Pither (Garry Rogers Motorsport, Renault Mégane RS), 7.9567
5. Jordan Cox (Ashley Seward Motorsport, Alfa Romeo Giulietta), 8.2262

Championship points
1. Brown 665 pts; 2. Tony D’Alberto 505; 3. Cameron 490