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Soutar Leads Practice One with Late Flyer at Phillip Island
Zac Soutar has put Tufflift Racing on top at the end of practice one at Phillip Island, courtesy of a late lap to deny Tony D’Alberto the fastest time to start round three of the 2024 Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series.
Full results can be found here.
After some early morning rain, there was little debate as teams bolted on the slick tyres and sent their drivers out for the short and sharp 20-minute session.
Times rapidly improved as the track continually dried, with an early game of musical chairs at the top of the timesheets between Aaron Cameron, D’Alberto, O’Keeffe and Josh Buchan.
The session was briefly halted for debris, but the sessions wasn’t without incident after Will Harris made contact with the back of Tom Oliphant at pit entry – both cars were able to return to pit lane and later returned to the circuit.
Garry Rogers Motorsport teammates Cameron and Ben Bargwanna and Jordan Cox completed just seven laps in the session. Honda Wall Racings’ D’Alberto was on top as the clock ran out, but Soutar improved on his final lap of the session to set a 1:36.6598s.
That benchmark is already just a second shy of the fastest ever TCR lap at Phillip Island, despite the slightly damp conditions on track.
Clay Richards (Carl Cox Motorsport Team MPC), Buchan (HMO Customer Racing) and O’Keeffe (Autoglym/Ashley Seward Motorsport) rounded out the top five.
Debutant Jude Bargwanna was 12th fastest, while Brad Harris was the leading TCR Challenge driver in sixth.
Practice two takes place at 3:10pm local time.