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BROWN FIGHTS HARD FOR FOURTH IN CHINA, MACMILLAN 12TH
2019 TCR Australia Series champion Will Brown has delivered an admirable performance in his first TCR race for two years, finishing fourth in the opening Kumho FIA TCR World Tour race at the Zhuzhou circuit in Hunan, China.
Brown, substituting for regular HMO Customer Racing driver Josh Buchan, had few moments of respite in the 18-lap race, in which the Toowoomba driver held out TCR World Tour championship leader Yann Ehrlacher after a gripping battle.
Ryan MacMillan continued his promising start to TCR competition, placing 12th out of the 22 cars which started and finished the race – remarkably, MacMillan has now finished 12th in each of the last five TCR World Tour races.
The race was won by SP Competition driver Aurelien Comte (Cupra), who controlled the race from pole position ahead of Thed Bjork (Lynk & Co) and Norbert Michelisz (Hyundai).
The Australians started the race in fourth (Brown) and 13th (MacMillan) respectively.
After the lights went out, Brown – faced with his first TCR launch since Bathurst in November 2023 – unsurprisingly had his work cut out, dropping back to sixth by Turn 1 behind the Lynk & Co pair of Ma Qing Hua and Ehrlacher. Meanwhile, MacMillan held 13th.
Brown reclaimed fifth from Ehrlacher in the opening corners, and set after Ma for fourth.
On lap two, Brown pressured a defensive Ma and drew alongside the Chinese driver entering the straight between Turns 10 and 11. With better exit speed, Brown gained the ascendancy in a side-by-side drag before assertively defending Ma into the following corner.
On lap eight, MacMillan pulled off a decisive lunge on the Hyundai of Lo Sze Ho to gain 12th.
As the race wore on, Brown put up a stout defence from Ehrlacher who moved up to fifth and had designs on the Australian’s fourth place.
Brown was forced to cover the French driver on the penultimate lap as the pair approached the downhill braking area into the Turn 8 hairpin.
With Brown taking a shallow line in defence, Ehrlacher used the momentum of his wider, outside line to pass the reigning Supercars champion, but with the situation reversed heading into the following corner, Brown executed a brilliant switchback to shoulder his way back into fourth.
From there, Brown held on for fourth while MacMillan took the chequered flag in 12th – amid a multi-car battle pack with TCR World Tour race winners Esteban Guerrieri, Nestor Girolami and Santiago Urrutia less than two seconds ahead.
Race 2 at Zhuzhou International Circuit is scheduled for 3:00pm AEDT on Sunday. With a progressive grid format featuring a reversal of the top 10 finishers from Race 1, Brown will start seventh.
Both Race 2 and Race 3 (Sunday, 7:40pm AEDT) will be streamed live and free on YouTube, via the TCR TV channel.
RACE RESULTS
Kumho FIA TCR World Tour – Zhuzhou, China
Race 1 of 3
1 Aurelien Comte (Cupra) 18 Laps
2 Thed Bjork (Lynk & Co) +3.060s
3 Norbert Michelisz (Hyundai) +5.348s
4 Will Brown (Hyundai) +10.658s
5 Yann Ehrlacher (Lynk & Co) +11.279s
6 Ma Qing Hua (Lynk & Co) +18.390s
7 Mikel Azcona (Hyundai) +21.950s
8 Esteban Guerrieri (Honda) +30.555s
9 Nestor Girolami (Hyundai) +31.378s
10 Santiago Urrutia (Lynk & Co) +31.619s
12 Ryan MacMillan (Hyundai) +32.382s