Jordan Cox won the opening TCR Australia race of the weekend at Tailem Bend in Australia, with the Peugeot driver fighting past the Honda of pole-sitter Tony D’Alberto through the opening corners.
Earlier in the day, D’Alberto had scored his third pole position of the season by lapping two tenths faster than HMO Customer Racing’s Josh Buchan, with Cox qualifying his GRM-run Peugeot in third, just under three tenths adrift.
But Cox would end up starting alongside D’Alberto on the front row of the grid, after Buchan was given a five-place grid penalty for swapping cars – back to a Hyundai Elantra N – this weekend, having previously raced a Hyundai i30 N.
Buchan’s car swap had come about after he started the season in the older-specification Hyundai when an issue was found in the Elantra, which took some time to be resolved.
At the start of the race, Cox and D’Alberto both appeared to make good starts from the front row, but with the duo alongside each other into the first corner, it was Cox who prevailed and took the lead.
Zac Soutar started from third on the grid, but the Audi driver stalled at the start and dropped to the very back of the field.
Initially, that promoted Clay Richards and Aaron Cameron into third and fourth, but the pair made contact at Turn 6 and went wide, allowing Buchan and the Peugeot of Ryan Casha into third and fourth.
At the front, D’Alberto stayed close to Cox throughout the race duration, but the Wall Racing driver couldn’t find a way by – despite a last-lap look.
Cox thus scored his second victory of the season, with D’Alberto just behind and Buchan completing the podium after a quiet race to third.
“We didn’t think we’d have the car for Tony there, but we had the pace so it was great,” said Cox after the race.
D’Alberto admitted that he wasn’t prepared to make an unnecessarily risky move on Cox for the lead.
“I felt like we had a little bit more pace at the end, but he drove a great race but to get past him probably would have required a little biff and I wasn’t prepared to do that,” said D’Alberto.
Ashley Seward Motorsport’s Dylan O’Keeffe took fourth, having steadily progressed during the race, the Lynk & Co driver having ended the opening lap in seventh.
Cameron took fifth, getting past Richards’ CUPRA on lap seven and then team-mate Casha three laps later.
Casha finished just behind his team-mate in sixth, with Wall Racing’s Brad Harris in seventh, after Richards, who was eighth, slipped back in the race – the Carl Cox Motorsport driver also being shown the sportsmanship flag for some of his defensive driving during the race.
The top ten was completed by the recovering Soutar and GRM’s Ben Bargwanna. The latter had to see off a late challenge from HMO Customer Racing’s Tom Oliphant, who on lap 16 made a late dive into Turn 1 but locked his brakes and went deep, allowing Bargwanna to hold the position which gives him the reverse-grid pole for Sunday’s second race.
Oliphant, who like team-mate Buchan received a five-place grid penalty for changing cars into the event, struggled to make progress in the race and was 11th, having started a place lower down.
Race results
| POS | NO | CL | NAT | DRIVER | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | BEST | GD |
| 1 | 33 |  |
Jordan COX | Schaeffler GRM | Peugeot 308 TCR | 19 | 30:02.0813 | 1:23.097 | 2 | |
| 2 | 2 | |
Tony D’ALBERTO | Honda Wall Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 19 | 0.567 | 1:23.085 | 1 | |
| 3 | 1 | |
Josh BUCHAN | HMO Customer Racing | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 19 | 1.514 | 1:23.355 | 7 | |
| 4 | 11 | |
Dylan O’KEEFFE | Autoglym / Ashley Seward Motorsport | Lynk & Co 03 TCR | 19 | 7.632 | 1:23.172 | 10 | |
| 5 | 18 | |
Aaron CAMERON | Team Valvoline GRM | Peugeot 308 TCR | 19 | 9.508 | 1:23.252 | 5 | |
| 6 | 79 | |
Ryan CASHA | Team Valvoline GRM | Peugeot 308 TCR | 19 | 13.047 | 1:23.645 | 8 | |
| 7 | 74 | |
Brad HARRIS | Exclusive Switchboards | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 19 | 14.074 | 1:23.371 | 6 | |
| 8 | 4 | |
Clay RICHARDS | Carl Cox Motorsport Team MPC | CUPRA Leon Competición TCR | 19 | 15.628 | 1:23.304 | 4 | |
| 9 | 110 | |
Zac SOUTAR | Tufflift Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 19 | 16.744 | 1:23.067 | 3 | |
| 10 | 71 | |
Ben BARGWANNA | Hangcha Racing | Peugeot 308 TCR | 19 | 19.088 | 1:23.534 | 9 | |
| 11 | 15 |  |
Tom OLIPHANT | HMO Customer Racing | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 19 | 21.844 | 1:23.635 | 12 | |
| 12 | 22 | |
Iain MCDOUGALL | Challenge Motorsport | Audi RS3 LMS TCR | 19 | 22.873 | 1:23.933 | 11 | |
| 13 | 76 | |
Will HARRIS | Exclusive Switchboards | Honda Civic Type-R FK7 TCR | 19 | 28.114 | 1:23.743 | 13 | |
| 14 | 29 |  |
Glenn NIRWAN | Tufflift Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 19 | 46.462 | 1:24.286 | 14 |