McElrea Racing’s Osborne took his maiden Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge Australia race win in the second round opener.
From the outside of the front row, the New Zealander headed the big 30-car field to Turn 1 ahead of polesitter Brock Gilchrist and led throughout. Oscar Targett jumped to third ahead of Conor Somers.
The Safety Car was called after the front runners completed the first lap. Hamish Fitzsimmons who started 11th after a grid penalty and Lachy Harburg both spun at Turn 5 and continued. Just up the road contact between Andrew Georgiadis and Caspar Tressider meant Georgiadis needed to be recovered.
After the race resumption, Gilchrist and Targett battled for second, the latter ultimately able to effect a pass at Turn 1 and secured second. Aron Shields finished fourth in front of Somers, Caleb Sumich, Ayrton Hodson and Jake Santalucia.
Ramu Farrell was ninth and first in Pro-Am where Brett Boulton was second in class and 11th outright behind Pro driver Tyler Greenbury, with Danny Stutterd third in class and just behind. Brad Carr won Class B and finished 13th outright. Fitzsimmons recovered to 17th while Harburg was 20th.
There will be two races on Sunday, the 45-minute Jim Richards’ Endurance Trophy race will kick off the Sunday program, followed by a second sprint race later in the day.
In the opening race of the Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series fourth round, Cox held off a race-long challenge from Tony D’Alberto for the win.
In his Peugeot 308 TCR, Cox went around the outside of the 2022 series champion D’Alberto (Honda Civic) at Turn 1 to grab the lead he would not relinquish.
“It was full-on, you had to be right on it for the whole race,” Cox said.
“We didn’t think we’d have the car for Tony then, but we made it work. We’ve got the speed and the reliability, and we’ve been rewarded with a race win.”
Reigning TCR champion Josh Buchan had a five-place grid penalty for a change from the Hyundai i20N hatch to the sedan. He overcame the penalty to take third and was just behind the leading duo at the finish.
Dylan O’Keeffe (Lynk & Co) passed Aaron Cameron (Peugeot) four laps from the finish to be next, the pair in front of Ryan Casha (Peugeot), Brad Harris (Honda), Clay Richards (Cupra Leon) and Zac Soutar (Audi RS3 LMS TCR) with a clutch issue that caused him to stall at the start.
Tenth placed Ben Bargwanna (Peugeot) will start the reverse top 10 Race 2 from pole on Sunday at 11:20am local time.
The first race of Round 2 of the Precision National Sports Sedans was a thriller with several lead changes. It was won by Thomas Randle in the family Saab/Chev.
He was third early as Peter Ingram (Mazda RX7 triple rotor turbo) led initially from Geoff Taunton (Marc GTSS). Taunton took the lead after three laps and a couple of laps later, Ingram retook the lead until he had a moment and dropped spots to Randle and Taunton.
Steve Tamasi (Calibra/Chev) had tagged onto the three at the front and then had contact with Ingram at Turn 1 which caused him to spin. Tamasi was stopped and Randle was able to win comfortable from Taunton, Ingram, Steve Lacey (Marc GTSS), Brad Sherrif (Nissan Skyline R34), Matt Ingram (Mazda RX8) and Michael Robinson (Holden Monaro/Chev).
Grant Sherrin took his Class X BMW M4 to a comprehensive victory in Race 2 of the Maguire’s Production Cars’ second round. From third on the grid, he took the lead on Lap 3, and completed the one-hour 35 lap race 31s ahead of Chris Lillis (Class A2 Chev Camaro) with another 8s back to initial race leader Dean Campbell (Class X BMW M2).
Fourth place went to Chris Sutton (Class A1 Mitsubishi Evo X), ahead of Paul Buccini/Justin Anthony (A1 BMW M140i), Simon Hodges (M4) and Damien Croxon (A2 Holden Commodore SSV). There was one safety car when Karlie Buccini (B1 BMW 135i) was off in the gravel trap at Turn 12.
Cameron Crick was in the Campbell BMW for Race 3 and took the lead off Sherrin on the first lap. He led until the mandatory stop where Sherrin was briefly in front. A second pit stop for the latter dropped him to third behind Lillis.
Crick won comfortably while Lillis scored second by 1.3s over the closing Sherrin. Hodges took over from Mark Caine for third while Sutton had to chase down and pass Anthony to take the A1 honours.
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