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Honda lockout front row as Tony D’Alberto takes pole at Queensland Raceway
Honda has dominated qualifying at Round 5 of the Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series at Queensland Raceway, with factory supported Wall Racing driver Tony D’Alberto taking pole ahead of fellow Civic Type R TCR pilot Zac Soutar.
Just 0.112s split the two Hondas as LIQUI MOLY Team MPC’s Will Brown was just 0.161s off D’Alberto’s pace in his Audi RS3 LMS TCR as rookie Bailey Sweeny made it three manufacturers represented in the top four driving the HMO Customer Racing Hyundai i30 N TCR.
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In fifth, MPC AWC Racing’s Jay Hanson was just 0.285s behind in his latest specification Audi as he led Nathan Morcom, Hyundai privateer Luke King and Valvoline Team GRM’s Aaron Cameron in the first Peugeot.
Rounding out the top 10 were Burson Auto Parts driver Ben Bargwanna in the Peugeot and Michael Caruso in his Autoglym Ashley Seward Motorsport Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce TCR.
It was thrilling opening segment of Astrontech Qualifying as the entire field was covered by less than a second, however some big names and contenders were knocked out.
D’Alberto set the early benchmark of a 1m 12.813s, which prove unbeaten until the end when he lowered to a 1m 12.796s.
Contesting his home round, Brown 0.061s behind the series leader at the end of the opening session as privateer Soutar, Hanson and Morcom made up the top five positions.
Also making the cut were Morcom’s rookie teammate Bailey Sweeny, Cameron, King’s privateer Hyundai backed by Moutai/ZIP PAY, Bargwanna and Caruso also progressed.
Among the names to miss included Forza Brakes Motorsport’s Lachlan Mineeff in his maiden appearance for Audi, polesitter last time out Josh Buchan, Kody Garland’s GRM Valvoline Racing Renault Megane RS and Michael Clemente in his privateer Honda.
Crucially, Dylan O’Keeffe will have a tough time eating into D’Alberto’s series lead from 15th in the Schaeffler GRM Peugeot, as will fourth placed in the title Jordan Cox in the Swyftx entry.
Rounding out the field was LMCT+ Racing GRM driver James Moffat in his Renault and Iain McDougall’s Challenge Motorsport Audi.
Supercheap Auto TCR Australia’s opening race is scheduled to start at 4:15pm AEST.
The SpeedSeries at Queensland Raceway will feature seven racing categories and 12 hours of live and ad-break free coverage on Stan Sport across Saturday and Sunday.
The coverage will be broadcast on Stan Sport between 11am-5pm on Sunday.
New customers can sign up to a Stan Sport 7-day free trial. Sign up now to watch all of the SpeedSeries action, plus the IndyCar Series, World Rally and more motorsport action >> http://www.stan.com.au/
International viewers can watch the Queensland Raceway action via motorsport.tv
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