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Cox Fends off Race-Long Assault to Claim Tailem Bend Opener
Jordan Cox held off a stern challenge from Tony D’Alberto to win the opening Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series race at Race Tailem Bend.
Click here for the full results.
The pair were the class of the field, the difference on the opening lap with Cox muscling around the outside of the 2022 series champion at Turn 1 and holding him off thereafter for his second win of the year.
“It was full-on, you had to be right on it for the whole race,” Cox said afterwards.
“We didn’t think we’d have the car for Tony then, but we made it work. The GRM guys put in a big effort between now and the last round, we’ve got the speed and the reliability and we’ve been rewarded with a race win.”
D’Alberto’s Honda appeared to have the edge on Cox’s Peugeot on speed down the front straight, ranging up alongside on lap 13, but wasn’t able to get close enough to make a proper attempt otherwise.
Reigning TCR champion Josh Buchan overcame a five-place grid penalty to take third place, with Dylan O’Keeffe passing Aaron Cameron in the closing stages to claim fourth place.
Ryan Casha made a flying start to hold down third in the early stages before fading to sixth at the end ahead of Phillip Island winner Brad Harris.
Clay Richards was next in eighth, having run as high as third on the opening lap before tangling with Cameron at Turn 6, holding off Zac Soutar and Ben Bargwanna.
Soutar had the hard-luck story of the race.
He stalled on the line and finally joined the race with the field almost at the first corner, but rapidly charged his way up to the bottom of the top 10.
The result also guarantees him a front-row start for the top-10 reverse grid Race 2 that gets Sunday’s TCR action underway at 11:20am local time.