Buchan wins, Brown DNF in TCR night race

Josh Buchan has breezed to victory in Race 1 of the Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series at Sydney Motorsport Park as several big names encountered trouble.

Buchan, who’d beaten Hyundai team-mate Nathan Morcom to pole by more half a second, made a tremendous start to set up the lights-to-flag victory.

It was not such a good getaway for Will Brown, who’d been elevated to the front row by virtue of an engine change-induced grid penalty for Morcom.

Brown was swamped off the line and demoted to fourth, although he managed to eventually pick off the Peugeots of Jordan Cox and Aaron Cameron to regain second.

That’s when trouble struck for the 2019 title winner, a broken damper wiping him out of the race and severely denting his championship challenge, dropping him from second to eighth in the standings.

In an action-packed middle stanza, Fabian Coulthard was spun by Kody Garland at Turn 2, before a flat tyre ruined Michael Caruso’s race.

Ben Bargwanna was set back by an engine misfire, while dramas began with an out lap spin for Braydan Willmington.

Out in front, Buchan ran a trouble-free race to win by 0.9572s from Cameron, with Cox third.

Fourth place helped Dylan O’Keeffe to inherit second in the standings, 34 points behind series leader Tony D’Alberto who came home eighth.

Zac Soutar, Nathan Morcom, Luke King, D’Alberto, Brad Shiels, and Jay Hanson rounded out the 10.

That means Hanson will start Race 2 tomorrow at 11:20 AEST from pole.

Results: Race 1