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The Rebuild That Kept Soutar’s Title Dreams Alive
An eighth-place finish for Zac Soutar in the final Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series sprint at Race Sydney had seemed unlikely earlier on Sunday afternoon.
At that point, even starting the race had seemed impossible.
Soutar’s #110 Audi had been crunched heavily in a multi-car tangle on the opening lap of Race 2 with Brad Harris and Tony D’Alberto.
The resulting damage put former TCR champ D’Alberto out for the day, and it initially looked like Soutar would be on the sidelines with him.
“It damaged so much of the car,” Soutar told V8 Sleuth.
“It destroyed the front bumper, destroyed the front crash bar, bent all the brackets for the radiator, split the splitter in two, broke a drive shaft, it broke an upright, which I’ve never seen happen before… it was a massive amount of damage.”
With less than three hours between the crash and the lights going out to start Race 3, the team set to work.
Headed by Soutar’s dad, former motorcycle sidecar racing hero Shane, the Tufflift Racing crew tore down the #110 Audi on the tarmac behind the transporters in the Sydney Motorsport Park paddock, then rebuilt it into a functional racecar in time for Soutar to take his place on the Race 3 grid.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Soutar said.
“We looked at the car and were like, ‘that’s it, we’re done’. But as always with my incredible team, and especially my dad who spearheads the whole thing, we just thought, ‘well, let’s give it a crack and try and get it out there’.
“Credit to them, they got it out there. They did the impossible.
“There were a few things that weren’t perfect, but look, it doesn’t matter at the end of the day; you just need to collect points and that’s what we did.
“It could make the difference come Bathurst.”
For the record, Soutar’s eighth-place finish in the finale netted 34 important points, and means he trails Buchan by 36 heading to the series finale at the Supercheap Auto Bathurst International in three weeks.
He had entered the round with a 27-point lead but expected to be on the back foot against his title rival, for whom Sydney represents a home round.
“I knew from the past that this was going to be a bit of a tough weekend for us,” he said.
“We came to the test day and I thought we’d made some good progress, but unfortunately tyre degradation has caught us out a bit.”
Buchan took his first slice out of the deficit in qualifying, taking the six points for pole position, while Soutar nabbed one point for sixth after a late lap in Q1 vaulted him into the top-six Q2 session.
Sixth in Race 1 – which Buchan won – translated to fifth on the grid for the reverse-top-10 Race 2, which ended with the #110 Audi on the first lap in the fence on the approach to turn 4.
“Honestly, it was just one of those things, it all happened that fast,” said Soutar, who at the time had yet to see on-board vision of the incident.
“I was on the outside and looking to get past the car in front and then I just think we all kind of squeezed each other.
“Brad was in the middle, Tony was on the outside but I hadn’t seen him and I was on the outside of Brad.
“I just got rotated straight into Tony.”
An absolute maximum haul of 144 points is on offer at the season finale; six for pole position, 35 to the winner of the top 10 reverse grid Race 2, 50 apiece for winning Races 1 and 3, plus a point for the fastest lap in each race.
It means that seven drivers are still mathematically in contention, although second-placed Soutar’s chances at deposing Buchan are the most realistic despite his challenging Sydney outing.
“Unfortunately, Josh has had a very good weekend and we haven’t had a good weekend at all, and that’s just the way it goes sometimes,” Soutar said.
“He’s got quite a lead now, but anything can happen.
“Look at what happened to Bailey Sweeny last year. I thought – everybody thought – that he had it done, and some gremlins crept in.
“The Audi has been good at Bathurst in the past. I think last year we were second in the last race out of the Aussies and I think seventh or eighth overall, so it was pretty good. I was pretty comfortable there last year and we had a pretty good setup.
“One positive we’ll have now is no (additional) weight heading to Bathurst as well, whereas some of the other guys around us will have a fair bit of weight. So that could play into our favour.
“But first and foremost, we’ve just got to get the car in a good window and get as fast as we can, and then it’s easier when the car’s quick.
“I just want to go to Bathurst and put it all on the line and try to get a podium there.
“That’s my goal, and we’ll see what happens with the rest of the point standings.”