Tasmania TCR: Sweeny takes early series lead

The opening race of the day went to Aaron Cameron (Garry Rogers Motorsport Peugeot) after a tense battle with Lachlan Mineeff (Melbourne Performance Centre Audi).

It was Mineeff that led the reverse-top 10 race initially after jumping polesitter Michael Clemente (Carl Cox Motorsport Audi).

Cameron made an even better start to immediately slot into second place and set after Mineeff.

The battle came to a head on Lap 11 when Mineeff ran wide at the hairpin, allowing Cameron to get alongside for the run to Turn 6 and ultimately grab a lead he would hold until the finish.

Title favourite Will Brown put in a charging drive from the back of the grid in his MPC Audi, which was repaired overnight after a costly input shaft failure yesterday.

The 2019 TCR Australia champion worked his way up to third, only for another failure to take him out of the race.

That handed third place to Jordan Cox (GRM Peugeot).

Race 1 winner Bailey Sweeny found himself on pole for the combined points feature race, however a sluggish getaway proved costly for the HMO Customer Racing Hyundai driver.

He wound up back in third on the opening lap as reigning champion Tony D'Alberto charged into the lead in his Wall Racing Honda, chased by Cox.

On Lap 6 Sweeny executed the first part of his recovery when he barged his way past Cox for second place.

He then set after D'Alberto, closing to within a second before his progress seemed to stall.

That was until Lap 20 when Sweeny suddenly swept into the lead as D'Alberto reported a gearbox glitch back to his Wall Racing crew.

Once in front there was no stopping Sweeny as he charged to a second win of the weekend, and an early 14-point series lead.

"I'm absolutely rapt with that," said Sweeny.

"I couldn't ask for a better start to the season. Tony is trying to fight pretty hard to keep the #1 on the door, but I couldn't ask for anything better.

"I think last year we left here last in the standings, so to be leaving the first round with a bit of a lead is unbelievable."

D'Alberto managed to get home in second to mark a solid start to his title defence on a circuit he didn't expect the Honda to be strong at.

"I had a couple of misshifts trying to go up the box and then going down the hairpin it wouldn't let me select any gears going down, so I went through the hairpin in sixth," D'Alberto explained.

"I'm really disappointed because we had good pace then and I felt like we could have held him off at the end."

Cox finished third ahead of Cameron and Oliphant.

Brown, meanwhile, missed the final race altogether, his miserable weekend ending with zero points on the board.

The 2023 TCR Australia season continues at Phillip Island on May 12-14.