TCR World and life

16 AUSTRALIA TonyD’Alberto isthevice-champion MAIDEN VICTORIES FOR CAMERON AND MORCOM AT THE BEND RACE 1 – WILL BROWN CLAIMS HIS SEVENTH WIN With the pole position spot empty due to power steering failure on O’Keefe’s Alfa Romeo, D’Alberto made a better start than Brown, but the latter took the lead into T2, while Cameron, Chris Pither and Jordan Cox moved into P3, P4 and P5 ahead of Nathan Morcom. At the end of the first lap Liam McAdam’s Audi and Chelsea Angelo’s Holden Astra were eliminated in an incident that prompted the safety car into action; when racing resumed D’Alberto and Cameron delivered a close fight for second, which gave Brown the opportunity to pull away. On lap 7, Cameron passed D’Alberto for P2 and at the same time Morcom lost a front wheel and went off while chasing Cox for P5. The top positions did not change until the end, and so Brown claimed his seventh race win of the season from Cameron, D’Alberto, Pither and Cox. With Will Brown already crowned as the first ever TCR Australia champion in the previous event, the series’ finale at The Bend Motorsport Park was the stage for the battle to secure the runner-up spot. The scrap between Dylan O’Keefe, Aaron Cameron and Tony D’Alberto was only decided in the last laps of the final race, when Cameron’s pace faded due to a turbo issue and D’Alberto was able to claim a fifth place that meant he took the vice-champion title. O’Keeffe, who had started the weekend by setting pole position, was sidelined by a series of technical issues and eventually dropped from second to fifth in the final standings. As for Brown, he finished his triumphant season in style, with his seventh victory and two other podium results.