D’Alberto sits out TCR finale in protest

The 2022 TCR Australia champion won a shortened opening race of the Race Tasmania weekend yesterday, only to have the win taken off him this morning.

That was due to a protest from Garry Rogers Motorsport over points being awarded for the shortened race, a Motorsport Australia hearing finding in favour of the team.

That sparked controversy among the rest of the TCR team and driver group, with rumours that nobody outside of GRM would take part in the finale.

Ultimately it was Honda driver D’Alberto that elected to take a stand and not take part in the final race.

The loss of points from race 1 badly affected D’Alberto, given that the grid for the finale was basically set off race 2 results, which is a reversed top 10 starting order.

Instead of starting from pole, he was set to start from seventh.

“It’s very much a sad situation to have the car here in pit lane,” D’Alberto told the broadcast.

“We put it on pole, won the first race, we conserved in race 2 just to look after the car and we knew we had enough points to start from pole for the last one… and a decision has been made that basically race 1 is non-points, and we start that [final] race back in seventh.

“I think it’s so unprofessional to happen so late in the piece. I had to make a stand.”

D’Alberto clarified that the decision not to race was his and didn’t come from his Wall Racing team.

“The team were encouraging me to do the race but I decided to pull the pin on it, because I just think it’s absolutely unprofessional and I don’t want to be part of that,” he said.

“Everyone was talking the same thing. Some weren’t as brave as I was to not do the race, but that’s where I’m at at the moment. I’m quite frustrated with the whole thing.

“If the championship wants to have myself, Honda and some big sponsors in the category they need to operate at a professional level. And this weekend has clearly been sub-par and there’s been different reasons for that.

“Everyone makes mistakes, we have all made mistakes. But it keeps continuing.

“I’m so disappointed in the whole process.”