Ashley Seward Motorsport will run two Alfa Romeo Giulietta cars in this weekend’s TCR Australia finale at The Bend Motorsport Park, after confirming James Allen will join the team alongside Dylan O’Keeffe.
The team took delivery of a second Giulietta Veloce earlier this week, with the team electing to get it on track at a race weekend as soon as possible.
23-year-old Perth racer Allen will join the team for the event, which will be the second time the series has visited The Bend this year.
Allen started his career in karting before racing in Europe for seven years in a variety of disciplines. Having raced in Formula BMW, he then competed in Formula Renault against drivers such as Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris, Alex Albon and George Russell.
Allen then moved on to sportcar racing, competing in the European Le Mans Series in 2017 in the LMP2 class, where he won races. He also competed in LMP1 and at the Le Mans 24 Hours.
This weekend will be his touring car début, although he already tested the team’s other Alfa Romeo in a test at Winton Motor Raceway on Wednesday.
“This is the first front wheel driver car that I’ve raced, and probably the heaviest race car I’ve ever driven too, so it will be a whole new game,” said Allen.
“I’m definitely looking forward to it. It’s always nice to try something different, but I had a test at Winton and that helped me get up to speed.
“At the moment, it’s just a one-off race for me. If I enjoy it, I’ll look into doing it next year if it doesn’t clash with any of my racing in Europe, and it will be nice to race back at home for once!
“I’ve been watching the TCR Australia races online. It looks close and it looks like it will be good fun. I’m just excited to get amongst it.”
Ashley Seward, Owner of Ashley Seward Motorsport, added that as well as running Allen, the team are focussed on helping O’Keeffe to secure the runner-up spot in the series this weekend.
“The new Alfa Romeo only arrived this week, so we’ve done some preparations, did the test yesterday and now we are ready for The Bend,” said Seward.
“The new car is basically the same Dylan’s car. It is newer, so it is just slightly more refined in some areas.
“We’ve spoken to a number of drivers about next year, including James, but our focus is just to get through The Bend, do our best to secure second place in the series for Dylan and then we’ll turn our attention to 2020.”