Hyundai all the way in TCR Australia’s opening day
TCR Australia’s historic first day has gone the way of Hyundai after Garth Walden Racing’s single-car i30 N driven by Michael Almond topped both 30-minute sessions that kicked off the local debut of the global touring car category at Sydney Motorsport Park.
After banking a flyer on new rubber early in the first session, Almond – who only signed to race in the opening round earlier this week – set an early TCR benchmark at the 3.9km circuit of 1:35.2320s early in practice one.
He then improved that further to a 1:34.6368s in the later, second practice session to dominate the day.
“It’s pretty exciting to top the first-ever TCR Australia practice session,” the Adelaide-based driver said.
“It was my first drive of the car, so GWR and Platinum Motorsport did a great job preparing it ahead of this weekend. I had a fairly good set of tyres on for that session, I’m not sure what the other teams down the lane were using so it’s still very much early days in the grand scheme of things.”
Second was another single-car entry, the Ashley Seward Motorsport Alfa Romeo Giulietta of Dylan O’Keefe jumping towards the top of the charts late in the second session.
After struggling with car balance early, late changes helped O’Keefe climb the order to ultimately finish just 0.14 seconds behind Almond’s benchmark.
“It was a pretty good day I think,” O’Keefe told TouringCarTimes.com. “The first session was a bit ordinary and we had a few little issues while getting used to the track. We changed the philosophy a bit in practice two, it didn’t work initially but we made some changes and ran green front tyres and it improved by two seconds.
“The guys are doing a great job, thinking logically about it and hopefully we can have a good crack at pole tomorrow.”
Former open wheel and sportscar ace John Martin made it three brands in the top three, finishing the day third in the first of two Wall Racing Honda Civic Type-Rs.
His team-mate, Tony D’Alberto, was fifth with the HMO Customer Racing entry of Nathan Morcom splitting the pair.
Former Bathurst winner Jason Bright was sixth in his VW Golf GTi, while on his Australian racing debut Rik Breukers was seventh for Melbourne Performance Centre.
Andre Heimgartner (Kelly Racing Subaru), James Moffat (Garry Rogers Motorsport Renault) and Alex Rullo (Kelly Racing Holden Astra) completed the top-10 in the faster second practice session.
All of the series’ eight represented brands were featured in the top-tenof the second session.
Outside the ten, Jimmy Vernon was eleventh in the lone GRM Alfa Romeo, his Renault-driving teammate Chris Pither next.
Rally champion Molly Taylor’s first day as a circuit racer saw her finish 16th in practice one and 13th in the second session. All 17 cars completed the first practice, while technical issues saw Will Brown fail to record a lap in practice two; his HMO Customer Racing Hyundai remaining garage-bound for the 30-minute session.
Almond topped the first practice session earlier on Friday with Nathan Morcom second in his identical Hyundai. Martin was third, while Brown’s day started better than it finished with fourth place.
Breukers’ Australian debut was impressive: Fifth in the first session despite never having seen the 12-turn, 3.9km Sydney Motorsport Park layout prior to today.
4.5 seconds covered the field today, however that margin is expected to compress in qualifying on Saturday as teams and drivers continue to tune their cars to the circuit and conditions.
Remarkably, both sessions ran almost entirely without incident: the only red flag of the day being called when Alex Rullo’s car stopped on track with less than two minutes remaining in the second session.
