Jay Hanson claims his and new Audi’s maiden TCR Australia win

Jay Hanson got his TCR Australia season off to the perfect start on Saturday, claiming both his and the new Audi RS3 LMS TCR’s first win in the series at Symmons Plains Raceway.

Having qualified his Melbourne Performance Centre-run car in second earlier in the day, Hanson made the better start when the lights went out to leapfrog pole-sitter Nathan Morcom’s Hyundai into the first turn.

Morcom’s HMO Customer Racing team-mate Josh Buchan then took second on the next lap, as Hanson began to open up an advantage of over a second over the chasing pack.

Ultimately, Hanson would take a comfortable maiden win in the series, and the first for the new-spec Audi in a national TCR series, as a challenge from Buchan never really materialised in the calm season-opener.

Buchan took the chequered flag over five seconds back, whilst Morcom would complete the podium in the second Hyundai i30.

James Moffat was fourth in his GRM Renault, having passed Will Brown’s Audi for the position on the second lap of the race at the penultimate corner.

Brown, the 2019 champion, had a challenging first race in his Audi, which was driven by Chaz Mostert to the 2021 title, as on the next lap he lost two further places to Aaron Cameron’s Peugeot and Zac Soutar’s Honda.

After that, Brown would stabilise and hold position for the rest of the race in seventh, as Team Valvoline GRM’s Cameron held on to fifth and Soutar a career-best-equalling sixth in his privately-run Honda.

Tony D’Alberto was the leading Wall Racing Honda in eighth, whilst the top ten was completed by Dylan O’Keeffe’s Peugeot and Brad Shiels’ Hyundai, after some fierce battling that also saw guest racer Fabian Coulthard briefly in tenth after battling hard with Shiels at the mid-stage of the race.

Coulthard thus finished in 11^th in his Honda and just missed out on the reverse grid, ahead of the recovering Michael Caruso in 12^th, the Alfa Romeo driver having started from the back of the grid after qualifying troubles.

HMO’s newcomer Bailey Sweeny had been occupying tenth until lap eight, when Shiels and Coulthard muscled through, and the youngster then dropped down the order over the following laps to ultimately take the chequered flag in 15^th.

Jordan Cox, who had qualified in tenth, had to start the race from the pitlane due to a technical issue, and could only recover to 16^th in the race which featured no dropouts.

Kody Garland failed to take the start, having withdrawn from the weekend after crashing his GRM Renault in practice.

Sunday’s second race will see the grid formed by the top ten positions in qualifying being reversed.

Another new change will mean that Sunday’s final race will feature a grid determined by the aggregate points scored in the first two races of the weekend.

Race two is scheduled to get underway at 14:25 local time on Sunday (03:25 GMT, 04:25 CET) followed by race three at 16:20 local time (05:20 GMT, 06:20 CET).

Race results

POS	NO	CL	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP	GD
1	9			Jay HANSON	AWC MPC Racing	Audi RS3 LMS TCR 2021	26	24:22.4360	55.781	2
2	30			Josh BUCHAN	HMO Customer Racing	Hyundai i30 N TCR	26	5.210	55.944	4
3	11			Nathan MORCOM	HMO Customer Racing	Hyundai i30 N TCR	26	7.378	55.978	1
4	34			James MOFFAT	LCMT+ Racing GRM	Renault Mégane RS TCR	26	7.729	55.982	6
5	18			Aaron CAMERON	Team Valvoline GRM	Peugeot 308 TCR	26	12.614	56.201	9
6	110			Zac SOUTAR	Team Soutar Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR	26	13.155	56.160	5
7	999			Will BROWN	MPC Team Liqui Moly	Audi RS3 LMS TCR	26	13.877	55.995	3
8	50			Tony D’ALBERTO	Honda Wall Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR	26	14.223	56.092	7
9	8			Dylan O’KEEFFE	Schaeffler GRM	Peugeot 308 TCR	26	14.631	56.144	11
10	333			Brad SHIELS	Royal Purple Racing	Hyundai i30 N TCR	26	15.164	56.016	12
11	24			Fabian COULTHARD	Stan Sport Wall Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR	26	15.638	56.071	13
12	10			Michael CARUSO	Ashley Seward Motorsport	Alfa Romeo Giulietta TCR	26	15.882	55.861	19
13	71			Ben BARGWANNA	Burson Auto Parts Racing	Peugeot 308 TCR	26	19.520	56.224	15
14	97			Liam MCADAM	Forza Brakes Motorsport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR	26	20.256	56.170	14
15	130			Bailey SWEENY	HMO Customer Racing	Hyundai i30 N TCR	26	22.314	56.065	8
16	33			Jordan COX	Swyftx GRM	Peugeot 308 TCR	26	29.237	56.360	10
17	14			Lachlan MINEEFF	Purple Sector	Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR	26	41.755	56.466	16
18	89			Braydan WILLMINGTON	Braydan Willmington Motorsport	Alfa Romeo Giulietta TCR	26	43.610	56.688	17
19	44			Eddie MAGUIRE	Melbourne Performance Centre	Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR	26	45.071	56.887	18
NS	41			Kody GARLAND	Valvoline Racing GRM	Renault Mégane RS TCR	–	DNS	N/A	–