Brad Harris and Will Brown share Sunday wins in Queensland

Brad Harris scored a maiden TCR Australia victory and Will Brown doubled up in Sunday’s pair of races at the Queensland Raceway, as Josh Buchan moved to the helm of the drivers’ championship standings.

Honda racer Harris had the reverse-grid pole position for Sunday’s first race, thanks to finishing in tenth in the opening encounter on Saturday.

But at the start, it was fellow front-row driver Michael Clemente who made the better start, moving into the lead at Turn One as Harris had to defend from the GRM Peugeot of Aaron Cameron.

However, further around the lap Harris found breathing space, and going onto lap two he battled back into the lead past Clemente’s CUPRA, despite contact on the start-finish straight.

Aaron Cameron muscled his way into second with a similar move to Harris going on to lap four, and the order at the front thereafter remained stable, with Harris – who was only contesting his eighth TCR race – earning a maiden victory by half a second from seasoned TCR competitor Cameron.

Brown completed the podium in third, having quickly got by Clemente on the fifth lap, with the latter soon falling back from the leading trio.

Clemente ultimately finished in fourth, over nine seconds off the lead, with Jordan Cox bringing his Peugeot home in fifth.

HMO Customer Racing’s Josh Buchan was sixth as the leading Hyundai racer, the Elantra N racer unable to make any progress in the 21-lap sprint.

Reigning champion Tony D’Alberto was seventh in his Honda, just over a second ahead of the Peugeot of Ben Bargwanna in eighth.

The top ten was completed by HMO’s Bailey Sweeny and the independent Audi of Lachlan Mineeff.

Although Zac Soutar ran as high as ninth in his Audi early on, he soon slipped to tenth, before losing a further place to Mineeff in the first-generation RS3 on lap nine when he slid wide at the first corner.

Stand-in racer Tim Slade also looked to benefit from Soutar’s mistake, but ultimately had to settle for 12^th in the sole Ashley Seward Motorsport Lynk & Co.

GRM’s Kody Garland finished in last, over 20 seconds adrift of the pack, after running through the gravel early on whilst running in sixth.

Race two results

POS	NO	CL	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	BEST	GD
1	74			Brad HARRIS	Exclusive Switchboards	Honda Civic Type-R FK7 TCR	21	26:43.2109	1:15.540	1
2	18			Aaron CAMERON	Team Valvoline GRM	Peugeot 308 TCR	21	0.488	1:15.436	4
3	9			Will BROWN	MPC Team Liqui Moly	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	21	1.047	1:15.179	10
4	15			Michael CLEMENTE	Michael Clemente Motorsport	CUPRA Leon Competición TCR	21	9.239	1:16.056	2
5	33			Jordan COX	Schaeffler GRM	Peugeot 308 TCR	21	10.034	1:15.982	7
6	30			Josh BUCHAN	HMO Customer Racing	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	21	11.472	1:15.899	6
7	1			Tony D’ALBERTO	Honda Wall Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FK7 TCR	21	12.130	1:15.932	9
8	71			Ben BARGWANNA	Burson Auto Parts Racing	Peugeot 308 TCR	21	13.540	1:16.256	5
9	130			Bailey SWEENY	HMO Customer Racing	Hyundai i30 N TCR	21	14.532	1:16.120	13
10	14			Lachlan MINEEFF	Forza Brakes Motorsport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR	21	18.304	1:16.154	12
11	110			Zac SOUTAR	Team Soutar Motorsport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	21	19.490	1:16.171	8
12	11			Tim SLADE	Ashley Seward Motorsport	Lynk & Co 03 TCR	21	19.816	1:16.264	11
13	41			Kody GARLAND	Valvoline Racing GRM	Peugeot 308 TCR	21	49.764	1:16.088	3

duo having scored the highest in the opening two races.

Brown had to defend the inside from Cameron at the start but held on to his advantage, as Cox in third came under heavy pressure from D’Alberto’s Honda.

D’Alberto, who had actually fallen behind Harris approaching the next corner, then hit Cox at Turn 3, sending both drivers deep into the hairpin and allowing Harris to assume third.

As D’Alberto recovered into third, Cox was bunched up in the pack behind and at Turn 4 he hit Harris’ car and was then turned around and into the gravel by the pack behind, putting him out of the race with a broken right-front wheel.

A three- lap safety car period was then required, with Soutar meanwhile retiring his Audi to the pits with another driveshaft failure.

At the restart, Brown and Cameron were quickly able to assume their advantages, but Brown ultimately came under no significant pressure for the win, although his margin of victory was only just under a second in the end after another late-race safety car.

That late intervention came when Garland got his Peugeot stuck in the gravel on lap 17, and the situation ultimately proved costly for D’Alberto.

The reigning champion had earlier been handed a ten-second time penalty for the incident with Cox earlier in the race, and despite crossing the finishing line in fourth, he dropped to 10^th – last of the finishers – after a one-lap sprint at the end meant he couldn’t open up enough of a gap over the field.

Harris completed the podium in third, ahead of Slade in fourth – a career-best result for the 38-year-old.

Sweeny secured his best finish of the weekend in fifth, ahead of HMO team-mate Buchan in sixth.

Mineeff brought his Audi home in seventh, ahead of Clemente’s CUPRA in eighth. The top ten was completed by Bargwanna and D’Alberto – with Bargwanna having run in fourth at one stage before losing time late on with an intermittent issue in his car reducing his power.

Buchan (457 points) now leads the standings – despite scoring a fifth and two sixths, with a one-point margin over team-mate Sweeny. Cameron sits third, a further 31 points back.

Race three results

POS	NO	CL	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	BEST	GD
1	9			Will BROWN	MPC Team Liqui Moly	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	21	33:01.5826	1:14.802	1
2	18			Aaron CAMERON	Team Valvoline GRM	Peugeot 308 TCR	21	0.9564	1:15.275	4
3	74			Brad HARRIS	Exclusive Switchboards	Honda Civic Type-R FK7 TCR	21	1.2736	1:15.544	5
4	11			Tim SLADE	Ashley Seward Motorsport	Lynk & Co 03 TCR	21	2.1450	1:15.430	11
5	130			Bailey SWEENY	HMO Customer Racing	Hyundai i30 N TCR	21	2.4072	1:15.017	13
6	30			Josh BUCHAN	HMO Customer Racing	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	21	3.1576	1:16.127	6
7	14			Lachlan MINEEFF	Forza Brakes Motorsport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR	21	3.7544	1:16.023	12
8	15			Michael CLEMENTE	Michael Clemente Motorsport	CUPRA Leon Competición TCR	21	4.0654	1:16.206	7
9	71			Ben BARGWANNA	Burson Auto Parts Racing	Peugeot 308 TCR	21	7.4166	1:15.458	8
10	1			Tony D’ALBERTO	Honda Wall Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FK7 TCR	21	11.7562	1:15.767	2
R	41			Kody GARLAND	Valvoline Racing GRM	Peugeot 308 TCR	16	DNF	1:15.778	10
R	33			Jordan COX	Schaeffler GRM	Peugeot 308 TCR	0	DNF	N/A	3
R	110			Zac SOUTAR	Team Soutar Motorsport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	0	DNF	N/A	9