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January 9, 2023 | General

The fast facts, stats and quirks from the 2022 TCM season

The 2022 Gulf Western Oil Touring Car Masters Season was eventful, competitive and filled with great stories throughout – and lots of interesting numbers to crunch.

Motorsport is always driven by passion but the statistics play an important role in how it all unfolds.

Fortunately, we’ve been crunching the numbers all year to detail just how the 2022 season played out.

Here’s some fun facts from the brilliant year just past!

  • Ryan Hansford won the championship in 2022, his first title and the first for the Queensland-based Multispares Racing team. Remarkably, Ryan is the first driver without the surname ‘Bowe’, ‘Johnson’ or ‘Richards’ to win the TCM title since 2009! Even then, it continues a decade-long tradition of famous surnames winning the championship.
  • Hansford’s title was the fourth for a Holden Torana driver and the second time a Torana has won back-to-back titles: John Bowe used a Torana for much of the 2015 season before winning again in 2016, while Bowe also claimed the 2021 championship.
  • The six rounds in 2022 were claimed by five different drivers. Only Steven Johnson won twice (the final two rounds) while the others went the way of George Miedecke, John Bowe, Ryan Hansford and Adam Bressington.
  • Hansford’s Townsville round win was notable as it was the first time in history that a single model of car had swept the podium in a TCM round – Torana’s finishing first, second and third in North Queensland.
  • Whiteline Racing’s sweep of Sandown, Adam Bressington and George Miedecke finished first and second, was the first time the team had claimed a 1-2 round result in TCM history – and the first time any team had achieved that feat.
  • Steven Johnson’s epic performance at Bathurst was notable for the fact that he was the first driver in TCM history to sweep a four-race TCM weekend; claiming the Trophy Race and the three championship races on offer that weekend at Mount Panorama.
  • Ford claimed their 200th race victory in season 2022, and are more than 130 ahead of the next best brand. Holden – with 60 wins – now only trail Chevrolet by nine race wins for second in the all-time winners rankings.
  • Eight different drivers won races in 2022, the third most in TCM history. That number is equal to the 2018 season, while only 2019 (9) and 2016 (10 winners) had more winners than the season just gone.
  • 41 drivers have now claimed TCM race victories: Danny Buzadzic became the 41st when he won the Trophy Race up in Townsville.
  • George Miedecke won three races this year and became just the third, second-generation driver to won TCM races. The others? Cameron Mason, son of 2007 TCM champion Steve and Aaron Seton, son of Glenn.
  • In qualifying, the average pole position margin was just 0.33 seconds – the closest it has been in five seasons.
  • Ryan Hansford was the only driver to score multiple pole positions (with two) while George Miedecke (Sandown) and Andrew Fisher (Bathurst) became first-time pole sitters in the season just gone.
  • Hansford has been a remarkable TCM qualifier: In the last 11 TCM rounds – dating back to the 2020 Adelaide 500 – the Queenslander has scored pole four times and qualified second on a further six occasions. The only time he missed the front row was at Bathurst last season, where he qualified tenth.
  • Three new lap records were established in 2022:John Bowe set the new Sydney Motorsport Park benchmark at 1m38.8846s in May, while Ryan Hansford’s 1m20.2322s effort in race one in Townsville stands as the new lap record there.A hard-charging George Miedecke set the new Adelaide Street circuit lap record aboard his Whiteline Chevy in December, with a 1m26.7998s best in Race 2 that weekend.