Will Brown continued his remarkable return to the Supercheap Auto TCR Australia with pole position for Race 1 of the fourth round at Queensland Raceway.
After he topped both practice sessions on Friday in the Melbourne Performance Centre Audi RS3 LMS, Brown’s best of 1:13.7221 during qualifying was 0.17s better than series leader Bailey Sweeny in the HMO Customer Racing Hyundai i30N.
“I got a thousand bucks, but no, it is awesome to be back [in the TCR series],” said Brown, the 2019 TCR champion, after he missed the last round at Winton Motor Raceway.
Third on the grid will be reigning champion Tony D’Alberto in the Wall Racing Honda Civic, with Tim Slade, subbing for Tom Oliphant, in the Ash Seward Motorsport Lynk & Co fourth.
Two Peugeot 308s will share the third row, with Jordan Cox fifth and Ben Bargwanna sixth. While Zac Soutar (Audi), Josh Buchan (Hyundai i30N), Michael Clemente (Cupra Leon Competition) and Lachlan Mineeff (Audi) rounded out the top ten.
In the first segment of qualifying, Brown was fastest on a 1:14.0330 in just five laps, less than what anyone else did in the session. D’Alberto jumped up to second later in the session, pushing Buchan back to third.
Cox was next until Slade demoted him one spot in the last few minutes. Then followed Soutar and Clemente. Kody Garland was 10th until pushed out by Mineeff just as the session finished by 0.11s. Garland, Brad Harris (Honda Civic) and Aaron Cameron would all miss out on processing to the second qualifying session.
Cameron in the Garry Rogers Motorsport Peugeot had his session was cut short when it made a smokey return to the pits. The front left inner guard had come adrift and damaged the tyre.
The Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series will race later today with the first of three races which will start at 4:15 pm. It will be live on Stan Sport and on free-to-air television 9Go. On Sunday, the two races are scheduled to run over 30mins at 12:45 pm and 4:20 pm.
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