Photo: TCR Australia

Brown and Soutar fastest as Garland crashes out of first Tasmania practice

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Will Brown and Zac Soutar topped the first two practice sessions of the TCR Australia season opener at Symmons Plains as Kody Garland crashed heavily, forcing the Garry Rogers Motorsport driver out of the weekend.

Garland crashed at the back sweeper during the first session, bringing the red flags out for 15 minutes as the marshals recovered his damaged Renault Megané R.S. TCR.

“It was just a mistake on my part, I made contact with the wall and was a passenger from there. I’m pretty upset with myself on that one,” said Garland.

“We’ve all put so much effort into this over the last couple of weeks and for it to end this way is certainly not the way we wanted. With the pace I was showing yesterday, it was looking good so I’ve learnt that one the hard way.”

Melbourne Performance Centre driver Brown topped the opening session behind the wheel of his Audi RS 3 LMS, beating fellow Audi driver Liam McAdam by just 0.0962 seconds.

James Moffat put his GRM prepared Renault in third spot, just over two tenths from the top time.

Jay Hanson, who is driving the new generation Audi RS 3 LMS, was fourth fastest, 0.2387 seconds from his team-mate at the top of the table.

Michael Caruso was fastest of the Alfa Romeo drivers for Ashley Seward Motorsport in fifth place, 0.2629 seconds from the top.

The second session saw Honda driver Soutar topping the times, lapping the Tasmanian circuit in 55.4522 seconds – close to three tenths faster than the opening session’s best time.

Moffat was a close second, 0.0289 seconds behind, with Dylan O’Keeffe making it two GRM drivers in the top three.

Wall Racing driver Fabian Coulthard was fourth fastest behind the wheel of his Honda Civic Type R TCR, less than a tenth of a second from the top time.

Brown, who topped the first session, rounded off the top five of the second session, 0.1316 seconds from Soutar’s best time.

Alfa Romeo driver Caruso reported a power steering issue during the session and was unable to set a competitive time.

Next up for the TCR Australia field is qualifying, starting at 14:25 AEDT.