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Wild race ends with another win for Alfa and O’Keeffe
Will Brown threw away a potential win in the second of three carsales TCR Australia Series contests at Phillip Island, leaving the way clear for Dylan O’Keefe to romp to a six-second victory.
O’Keefe won the first race on Saturday afternoon and only lost the top spot briefly to Brown in Race 2, capitalising on the high-speed strength of his Alfa Romeo Giulietta as the field was decimated by contact and a pair of punctures for the Honda Civic Type Rs of Tony D’Alberto and John Martin.
The final finishing order was O’Keefe ahead of Brown and youngster Hamish Ribaritis in an Audi RS3.
“He was just quicker than me. Once he broke the tow I was done,” Brown reported after the finish.
“I was locking brakes all over the place. But we’ll put a new set-up on the car and see how we go.”
The incident-packed race was only two corners old when James Moffat triggered a multi-car pile-up when he ran wide in his Renault Megane.
Andre Heimgartner and Garth Tander were knocked out of contention, and Tander out of the race with major front-end damage to his Audi RS3, as they took avoiding action from the runaway Renault.
“I just buggered it up. That’s racing,” Moffat said.
As O’Keefe motored away, there was action back through the pack with everyone from Nathan Morcom in his Hyundai to Alex Rullo, who advanced to fifth in his Holden Astra.
But Honda a twins, Martin and D’Alberto, lost any chance of a top-five slot with nearly-identical right-front punctures.
“The tyre went a Turn 2 with no warning. Just bang,” D’Alberto said.
“I didn’t get that far. Mine went in One. I thought to myself ‘Oh, wow, this will be big’. I stopped over near Turn 3,” said Martin.
The final race of the TCR weekend will see racing resume with the grid order decided by the finishing positions in Race 2. CLICK HERE for the live stream.