Zac Soutar takes first TCR Australia win in red-flagged finale

Privateer Zac Soutar claimed his maiden TCR Australia victory in a red-flagged final race of the weekend at Symmons Plains.

The Honda Civic Type-R driver started third on the grid but made the most of a five-second penalty for HMO Customer Racing Hyundai’s Josh Buchan to inherit the race win.

Buchan was demoted to fourth at the flag, but leaves the opening weekend with a narrow lead in the points standings.

“It was really Josh’s weekend and bad luck to him. This is a massive family effort, my dad puts so much work into it and there have been some challenges but it’s been worth it,” said Soutar.

Pole-sitter Buchan got the best getaway to lead into the first corner as Soutar and Will Brown came to blows under braking for the tight left-hander, sending Brown into the gravel and a lap down.

A brief safety car intervention followed, with Buchan maintaining his advantage over Soutar at the restart, but the race was halted soon after following an incident between Brad Shiels and Dylan O’Keefe at the final corner.

Shiels tried to make a cut-back move on O’Keefe’s Peugeot 308TCR at the end of the seventh lap of a planned 26 but clipped the left rear of O’Keefe, sending the Peugeot into the wall.

O’Keefe’s car bounced back onto the track and the race was stopped due to repairs being needed to the tyre barrier on the main straight.

O’Keefe labelled the incident as “pretty shocking racing to be honest” with Shiels accepting blame adding that he was “going for a gap which I tried to back out of.”

After a long delay, the race restarted with Buchan leaping away from Soutar and D’Alberto. However, before the action resumed, Buchan was seen to weave after the safety car lights had been switched off, with the race stewards handing the race leader a five-second post-race penalty accordingly.

That meant that Buchan had to push for the remainder of the ultimately timed race, and the Hyundai driver immediately set the fastest lap of the race on the next lap.

He opened his lead gap up to just over three seconds at the flag, but it was not big enough to stay on the podium.

D’Alberto was promoted to second, making it a Honda one-two in the end, with Race 2 winner Jordan Cox taking third in his Swyftx GRX Peugeot 308TCR.

Just behind Buchan in fifth place was Shiels, who recovered from his incident with O’Keefe to end up just over six-tenths adrift of the on-the-road winner.

Nathan Morcom finished sixth in the second HMO Customer Racing Hyundai i30 N TCR, just ahead of Race 1 winner Jay Hanson, with Michael Caruso producing a superb recovery from 17th to finish eighth at the flag.

The Peugeot 308TCR of Aaron Cameron and the LM Motorsport Audi RS 3 LMS of Liam McAdam rounded out the top 10 finishers.

In the standings, Buchan holds a two-point margin over Soutar heading into the second round of the season at Phillip Island, with D’Alberto just two points further back in third.

The 2019 champion Brown is seventh following a tricky opening weekend in the Audi.

Round two is scheduled to take place on March 18-20.