Tony D’Alberto wins again at Queensland in TCR Australia Race 3

Tony D’Alberto took another lights-to-flag win from pole in TCR Australia Race 3 at Queensland Raceway.

The Wall Racing driver had a stunning opening lap to put 1.7 seconds between himself and points leader Zac Soutar who had joined him on the front row.

Soutar got the gap down to under a second late on lap four, and just two laps after that he was within half a second of D’Alberto.

Finding a way past proved far more difficult than chasing him down, and D’Alberto ended up being able to maintain a gap and then start growing it again in the race’s second half.

On lap 12 he had a buffer of a second once more, but Soutar – who had been better able to manage his tyres once in a bit of clean air – began closing in again. It took until lap 18 for him to reduce the gap to under 0.7s, and it was a short-lived margin as D’Alberto finished the 21-lap contest 0.8s ahead.

HMO Customer Racing’s Josh Buchan got into third on lap one and was fairly lonely in the position through the race’s first half. However he then got close to title rival Soutar at the point that he fell back from the leader, and stayed there.

He finished 0.4s behind Soutar, with team-mate Tom Oliphant a further 0.5s back in fourth.

Wall Racing’s Brad Harris started third but fell to ninth on lap one and was unable to recover any lost ground, while Race 2 winner Ryan Casha lost a position every two laps from fifth on the grid until he was down in 10th. After that he gradually lost touch with the pack ahead.

The next TCR Australia race takes place on October 18-20 at Sydney Motorsport Park.