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AUSTRALIA
Theperfectweekend
ofDylanO’Keeffe
THE ALFA ROMEO DRIVER CUTS 72 POINTS OFF WILL BROWN’S LEAD
The success story of TCR Australia’s
maiden season continued, as the
championship reached its halfway
point at the Queensland Raceway,
which hosted rounds 10, 11 and 12 of
the series.
The 2017 TCR International Series
Champion and current WTCR driver
Jean-Karl Vernay made a guest
appearance for the Melbourne
Performance Centre at the event. He
qualified his Audi RS 3 LMS on pole
for Race 1 and duly took a lights-to-
flag victory to finish over seven
seconds ahead of Dylan O’Keefe in an
Alfa Romeo and the Audi of Russell
Ingall, who recorded his first podium
finish in the series. The championship
leader, Will Brown in the HMO
Customer Racing Hyundai i30 N, had a
race to forget, finishing in last place
after an incident on the opening lap
forced him to pit to change a wheel
and he then picked up a drive-
through penalty for taking a short cut
back to the pits. Heimgartner’s run of
bad luck continued when he blew the
Astra’s engine and so would miss the
following day’s two races.
Vernay also withdrew from Sunday’s
competition because of illness, so it
was left to O’Keefe to start Race 2
from pole ahead of Ingall, while Aaron
Seton – the son of two-time
Australian Touring Car Champion
Glenn Seton – was drafted in to
replace Vernay in the MPC Audi.
O’Keefe duly recorded his third win of
the season, finishing 0.77 seconds
ahead of Ingall, with the Volkswagen
Golf GTI of Aaron Cameron finishing
third. Both Ingall and Cameron