Photo: TCR Australia

Will Brown wins chaotic, red-flagged first Sydney race

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Will Brown prevailed in a chaotic first joint TCR World Tour and TCR Australia night race at Sydney Motorsport Park, a race which was halted due to heavy rainfall and provided spectacular action.

Peugeot driver Ben Bargwanna started from pole but quickly fell down the order to finish 18th.

Instead it was Melbourne Performance Centre driver Brown who took command early on and managed to win despite a safety car period, a sudden rain shower and a red flag interruption.

The first safety car came on lap two as Zac Soutar stopped on track with damage to his Audi RS 3 LMS. This also saw Cyan Racing driver Santiago Urrutia pitting with suspension damage from contact with Honda driver Néstor Girolami.

Prior to the red flag saw reigning TCR Australia champion Tony D’Alberto and TCR World Tour points leader Norbert Michelisz making spectacular contact at Turn 1, with D’Alberto spinning off at high speed and dropped down the order to ultimately finish 15th.

And just as the safety car headed back in, the heavens opened, catching the majority of the field out at Turn 2, with more than half of the field, including race leader Brown, going off onto the grass.

This saw Hyundai driver Mikel Azcona in the lead ahead of Lynk & Co driver Ma Qing Hua, only for the red flags to be brought out and the entire field pitting for wet tyres. The order for the new restart was reversed to the lap before the first restart, meaning Brown was handed his lead back.

The restart saw the Lynk & Co duo of Ma and Yann Ehrlacher on the move, making their way up to third and fourth place from 13th and sixth place on the grid respectively.

But the joy was short lived for title contender Ehrlacher who was hit with a five-second penalty for weaving on track while the safety car had put its lights out, dropping him from third over the finishing line to sixth.

Team-mate Ma inherited third behind race winner Brown and Hyundai’s Azcona.

The Comtoyou Racing duo of Rob Huff and Frédéric Vervisch claimed positions four and five.

Peugeot driver Aaron Cameron was second best of the TCR Australia drivers in seventh position ahead of Michelisz and Cyan Racing driver Thed Björk.

Néstor Girolami fought hard with Garry Rogers Motorsport driver Jordan Cox to secure tenth place and the Race 2 reversed grid pole position tomorrow, pushing the Peugeot driver wide a couple of corners before the finishing line on the last lap.

The second race of the weekend starts at 16:05 local time/06:05 CET on Saturday.