Tony D’Alberto has unveiled the livery of his Honda Civic Type R TCR for the 2023 Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series that he will campaign in the pursuit of back-to-back titles.
After being faced with an uncertain future while Honda Australia contemplated its involvement for 2023, D’Alberto has now revealed his challenger that features a traditional Honda Motorsport theme with splashes of red and white.
The Wall Racing entry will also sport the #1 off the back of the Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series title winner’s victory last season, which consisted of two race wins and five podiums.
“It’s always great to start the new year with a fresh look, and after being bright and bold over the past couple of seasons, it was the right time to switch back to a traditional Honda racing livery,” D’Alberto said.
“Honda has an incredible history in motorsport, and when you see these colours on a race car, you know it’s a Honda race car.
“We’ve been fortunate to have some really good-looking Type R liveries over the years, and maybe I’m a little one-eyed, but this one is my favourite, and I can’t wait to get it onto the Symmons Plains track next week.”
D’Alberto will start the season with the same FK7/FK8-based Civic Type R TCR model that first ran in 2018, however its understood that Wall Racing is investigating when it can make the switch to the new-generation FL5-based TCR Civic Type R that made its debut in Italy last December. JAS Motorsport expects to deliver its first in April, but in the meantime, the existing model will have to make do for D’Alberto as he chases a second consecutive series win.
“Our clear intention is to try and go back-to-back,” D’Alberto told Speedcafe.com. “It’s going to be quite tricky, as there’s a lot of new cars out there, but the same [type] of cars were in the field last year and we managed it, so I can’t see why it’s outside the realms of possibility. Every year it gets harder but we’re fully equipped to understand the task at hand and we’ll just give it our best shot and see where we end up.”
“After seeing Tony score that fantastic series win in 2022, we wanted to see him race with the #1 and favourable Honda colours, white and red,” Honda Australia Director of Automotive Carolyn McMahon added.
D’Alberto will debut the new look at the Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series tyre test at Symmons Plains Raceway, Tasmania on Thursday, February 23, before the season commences officially the following day with practice for AWC Race Tasmania.
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