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D’Alberto Grabs Pole with Fastest Ever TCR Lap at Phillip Island
Tony D’Alberto has taken his second Astrontech Pole Award in a row, after setting the fastest ever TCR lap at Phillip Island as part of round three of the 2024 Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series.
Full results can be found here.
The two-part qualifying kicked off with an all-in 15-minute session from which only the top six progress to the second part of qualifying.
Josh Buchan set the initial benchmark for HMO Customer Racing, with D’Alberto closely in tow. The Wall Racing driver claimed the top spot with his next flying lap, with a 1:35.4852s, and proceeded back to pit lane for the final five minutes of the session.
Brad Harris shadowed his teammate to the top, ending up just 0.0792s short at the end of Q1. Buchan lowered his time but stayed in third, ahead of Dylan O’Keeffe, Clay Richards and Zac Soutar.
There was a lucky escape for the Tufflift Racing driver, with Soutar forced to limp back to the pits with a puncture at the end of Q1.
Ben Bargwanna improved late but was unable to find a berth in Q2, setting himself seventh on the grid. Notably, previous round winner Tom Oliphant will go from eighth, while the other three Garry Rogers Motorsport cars fill out the next three places.
In Q2, there were slightly differing run plans as three cars elected to fire out straight away. Of those cars Richards was fastest, but the Carl Cox Motorsport driver was soon eclipsed by D’Alberto.
The 1:35.2163s lap time from D’Alberto beats the previous fastest qualifying lap at Phillip Island, which had been set in 2021 by Chaz Mostert, by four tenths of a second.
Brad Harris followed up on his impressive Q1 performance to secure his first career front-row start in TCR, also dipping under the previous lap record. Josh Buchan lines up from third, ahead of Dylan O’Keeffe in the Ashley Seward Motorsport Lynk & Co.
Clay Richards and Zac Soutar rounded out the six drivers in Q2.
Race one takes place at 3:15pm local time, live on 7plus and 7mate. Viewers in the Sydney area will only be able to watch via 7plus.
International viewers can tune in via the SpeedSeries website.