Sweeny wins, Hanson crashes out of TCR Race 1 at Bathurst

Bailey Sweeny has won Race 1 in Round 7 of the Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series at Bathurst while Jay Hanson crashed heavily as he gave chase.

They had run first and second from the start until Hanson clouted the wall on the climb to ‘The Tree’ on Lap 17 around Mount Panorama, a hit which may well have caused significant damage to #9 Audi RS 3 LMS but one from which he was able to clamber out of his car.

The incident left HMO Customer Racing’s Sweeny free to win by 1.8857s over Garry Rogers Motorsport’s Dylan O’Keeffe after 18 laps, with Nathan Morcom third in another HMO Hyundai i30 N at the Supercheap Auto Bathurst International.

Title contender Jordan Cox (Peugeot) finished ninth and series leader Tony D’Alberto (Honda) 12th, meaning the latter now leads the former by 35 points with two races to go in 2022.

Josh Buchan had already been slow away from the grid for the formation lap in the new Hyundai i30 N sedan before appearing to stall when the lights went out to mark the start of the race proper.

There were no such problems for team-mate Sweeny, who took up the lead from the outside of the front row in his #130 i30 N, from pole-sitter Hanson, O’Keeffe (Peugeot), and Morcom.

D’Alberto had dropped net one position to 13th by the time the field started climbing the mountain but Cox had already jumped from 18th on the grid to 10th thanks to a good start and then threading his way through some bump and grind on Mountain Straight.

He had started back there because of a run-in with GRM team-mate James Moffat (Renault) on their out laps in Qualifying 1.

The crash occurred when Cox tried to pass on the run to Griffins Bend and Moffat continued to weave in order to warm up his Michelin tyres, with stewards opting to dish out no penalties once they investigated the matter.

Sweeny finally started to shake Hanson on Lap 5 of the race, stretching his lead to 0.7s as the Melbourne Performance Centre pilot pulled more than three seconds clear of third-placed O’Keeffe, who was under pressure from Morcom.

Sweeny was almost a full second to the good before Hanson roughly halved the gap come Lap 10, only to then run through the grass at McPhillamy Park and see his deficit jump back up.

It had grown beyond two seconds when a Safety Car was called on Lap 12 due to the presence of kangaroos on and/or near the track.

The neutralisation helped Hanson but gave D’Alberto, who continued to hold 13th, a reprieve from the pressure which had been coming from Morcom.

The restart came on Lap 15 and Sweeny had to defend first position from Hanson, before Luke King (Hyundai) completed a pass for 10th on Cox at The Chase and hence put himself in the box seat for the Race 2 grid inversion, and Buchan did get by D’Alberto at the same corner.

Cox forced his way back past King at The Cutting on Lap 17 and the latter would go on to pit with a puncture, as Hanson tried to keep pace with Sweeny at the very front of the field.

UPDATE: King to request review

However, he came unstuck in a big way on Lap 17 and the heat was off the man in the #130 Hyundai, even if the race continued with Car #9 covered by a local yellow.

Behind Sweeny, O’Keeffe, and Morcom at the finish was Aaron Cameron (Peugeot) in fourth after a vigorous battle with GRM team-mate Ben Bargwanna (Peugeot).

Sixth went to Michael Caruso (Alfa Romeo), from Will Brown (Audi), Lachlan Mineeff (Audi), Cox, and Teddy Clairet (Peugeot).

Race 2 is set to get underway tomorrow at 09:25 local time/AEDT.

All races are live and ad-free on Stan Sport.

Results: Race 1 Updated

Series points Updated