Brown and Azcona share victories in Sydney

• On the starting grid the stars of the TCR discipline face some big names from the southern hemisphere such as Will Brown who usually drives in Australian Supercars for Erebus Motorsport. Mikel Azcona (Hyundai) is the highest ranked World Tour driver, Norbert Michelisz (Hyundai) is 9th and Yann Ehrlacher (Lynk & Co) 13th.

• Since the start of the meeting, the weather has played tricks on the competitors. During the formation lap the rain began to fall on the Sydney Motorsport park while the majority of competitors set off on slick tires.

• However, the track will remain passable during the first part of the race. Ben Bargwanna and Will Browns manage to stay in the lead at the start of the race.

• In the first lap Mikel Azcona managed to climb to 3rd place at the expense of Bailey Sweeny, the leader of TCR Australia. Michelisz is in distress at the chicane and falls to 15th place!

• Rob Huff (Audi) moved up to 4th place just behind Azcona. Nestor Girolami (Honda) is 9th ahead of Ehrlacher. Santiago Urrutia (Lynk & Co) is in difficulty and will be forced to abandon this race.

• In the next round, Rob Huff placed an unstoppable attack on Bargwanna who could not resist the British southern offensive. 3rd in the race, Huffy is currently 2nd in the World Tour race (the local championships and the World Tour have separate rankings, editor's note) behind the 2022 WTCR champion.

• The safety car was called onto the track to clear the car of an Australian competitor, and it was at this moment that the rain appeared. At first light, it intensifies until the moment when the safety car restarts the pack.

• On the 7th lap and braking for the second turn, almost the majority of the field found themselves off the track! The image is incredible and the ranking is greatly disrupted!

😱 HE’S IN THE GRAVEL! THEY’RE ALL IN THE GRAVEL!!!#SpeedSeriesAU #RaceSydney #StanSportAU #TCRWorldTour #SCAutoTCR @TCR_Series @TCRAustralia pic.twitter.com/3h2N6WdIRe

— Shannons SpeedSeries (@SpeedSeriesAU) November 3, 2023

• Thus Azcona managed to take the lead again in front of Brown. The race management did not waste a second and interrupted the race with the red flag, miraculously no major incident was reported as a result of this uncommon situation.

• The classification to restart the race is established according to the previous round. When the race restarted, Will Brown was once again the leader of the round. On a wet track, he takes Azcona and Huff behind him, ready to pounce in case the 2019 TCR Australia champion fails.

• Nestor Girolami is making a good comeback, the Argentinian is now 7th. But the prize for the comeback goes to Yann Ehrlacher, now 4th in the escapes of Rob Huff. We are then 1 lap from the finish, the Alsatian and Ma Qing Hua will manage to overtake the Briton. 3rd under the checkerboard, Erhlacher will be downgraded and finish 6th in this somewhat crazy race.

• Will Brown won this first race ahead of Azcona and Ma Qing Hua. The Spaniard pockets maximum points for the World Tour. He is 6 points behind his teammate Michelisz, still leader, but tied on points with Yann Ehrlacher. There are two races remaining at Sydney Motorsport Park at Eastern Creek.

World Tour ranking after this race 1 ©TCR Series