Bright makes history as first TCR Australia race winner

Jason Bright, driving an Alliance Autosport Volkswagen Golf GTI, became the first-ever winner of a TCR Australia race when he won Race 1 at Sydney Motorsport Park.
Bright, starting from second on the grid, made a better getaway than pole-sitter Tony D’Alberto in a Honda Civic and was then able to control the race from the front. D’Alberto enjoyed a race-long battle for second place with the Hyundai i30 N of Will Brown, with Dylan O’Keefe’s Alfa Romeo Giulietta joining the fight in the closing stages of the race to make it a three-way scrap for the podium places.
With D’Alberto forced to defend from a determined Brown, Bright was able to pull away and eventually finished over two seconds clear. The battle for second place was one of the highlights of the race, with O’Keefe steadily catching the pair over the closing few laps, forcing Brown to switch from attack to defence. That took some of the pressure off D’Alberto, who finished second, Brown completed the podium ahead of O’Keefe and guest star Rik Breukers finished fifth in an Audi RS 3 LMS.
Behind the top five, D’Alberto’s Wall Racing teammate John Martin was sixth and the Volkswagen Golf of Aaron Cameron was seventh after Nathan Morcom’s Hyundai lost two places on the final lap. The Renault Mégane RS of Chris Pither and Andre Heimgartner’s Subaru WRX STI rounded off the top ten.
Sixteen starters formed the grid for the season’s opening race, with the Renault of James Moffatt sidelined with an oil leak prior to the formation lap. All sixteen finished, although both the Alfa Romeo of Jimmy Vernon and Michael Almond’s Hyundai were forced into the pits during the sixteen-lap race – Almond to get a broken bonnet pin fixed on Lap 5 and Vernon with a front puncture on Lap 8.
Race 2 will start tomorrow at 13:10 local time (05:10 CET) with the grid based on Race 1 result; Race 3 will follow one hour later.

Race 1
1. Jason Bright (Alliance Autosport, Volkswagen Golf GTI), 16 laps
2. Tony D’Alberto (Wall Racing, Honda Civic FK7), 2.1778
3. Will Brown (HMO Customer Racing, Hyundai i30 N), 3.3583
4. Dylan O’Keeffe (A. Seward Motorsport, Alfa Romeo Giulietta), 3.5999
5. Rik Breukers (Melbourne Performance, Audi RS 3 LMS), 8.2312

Championship points
1. Bright 40 pts; 2. D’Alberto 36; 3. Brown 32