Andre Heimgartner to sit out Sunday races at Queensland Raceway

Andre Heimgartner has been forced to watch from the sidelines for this weekend’s two remaining TCR Australia series races at Queensland Raceway due to engine troubles with his Kelly Racing prepared Holden Astra TCR.

The young Kiwi has been forced to withdraw from the rest of the round after the #777 entry suffered an engine failure while running in the top five during yesterday’s opening race.

Without any spare engines on hand, Kelly Racing has no choice other than to park the car up for the weekend and focus on repairing it before the next round at Winton Raceway in September.

Heimgartner and the Kelly Racing team have suffered a string of bad luck so far in 2019, prompting a switch for the driver this round to fill Chelsea Angelo’s seat in her normal Holden Astra TCR while teething problems with Heimgartner’s Subaru WRX STi TCR are sorted.

Since the first round of the championship, Heimgartner has recorded a DNF thanks to mechanical issues in at least one race from every round, the worst coming last time out at The Bend as an issue from Race One couldn’t be rectified, forcing him to sit out the whole weekend.

Currently sitting 16th in the championship, it’s likely Heimgartner will fall down the order without the chance to score points in today’s two sprint races.