Ashley Seward Motorsport expands for season finale

Ashley Seward Motorsport has confirmed that it will run a second Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce for the final round of the TCR Australia Series season at The Bend Motorsport Park this weekend.

The team took delivery of the car earlier this week and has elected to run it at the first possible opportunity, with Perth-racer James Allen being given the chance to make his TCR debut.

Allen has spent recent seasons competing in sportscars having earlier battled against the likes of Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris and George Russell whilst racing in junior single-seaters.

The 23-year-old sampled the car for the first time at Winton alongside team regular Dylan O’Keeffe and said he was excited about the weekend ahead.

“This is the first front wheel driver car that I’ve raced, and probably the heaviest race car I’ve ever driven too, so it will be a whole new game,” he said. “I’m definitely looking forward to it. It’s always nice to try something different, but I had a test at Winton and that helped me get up to speed.

“At the moment, it’s just a one-off race for me. If I enjoy it, I’ll look into doing it next year if it doesn’t clash with any of my racing in Europe, and it will be nice to race back at home for once!

“I’ve been watching the TCR Australia races online. It looks close and it looks like it will be good fun. I’m just excited to get amongst it.”

Team boss Ashley Seward said Allen was one driver in contention for a possible race seat for the 2020 season.

“The new Alfa Romeo only arrived this week, so we’ve done some preparations, did the test yesterday and now we are ready for The Bend,” he said. “The new car is basically the same Dylan’s car. It is newer, so it is just slightly more refined in some areas.

“We’ve spoken to a number of drivers about next year, including James, but our focus is just to get through The Bend, do our best to secure second place in the series for Dylan and then we’ll turn our attention to 2020.”