Dylan O’Keeffe believes his Alfa Romeo’s high-speed handling prowess will be perfectly suited to the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit, where the TCR Australia Series heads for Round 2 this weekend.
O’Keeffe sits second in the TCR standings after he and his Ashley Seward Motorsport team produced a strong debut performance in the inaugural round at Sydney Motorsport Park, where O’Keeffe led two of the three races.
“One of the features of TCR is the cars are not exactly the same, and they have different strengths and weaknesses,” O’Keeffe said.
“The Alfa’s strength is its balance in the fast corners; at Sydney, it felt very stable and gave me the confidence to carry a lot of mid-corner speed.
“The main area where we struggled was slow-corner exit speed, but that’s not so much of an issue at Phillip Island, because there are only two really low-speed corners – Honda and MG.”
The Phillip Island TCR round has attracted some additional entries including one for Supercars Champion and multiple Bathurst 1000 winner Garth Tander; O’Keeffe said it’s a positive sign for the continued growth of the category.
“For a brand-new series to already be attracting entry numbers in the high teens, and drivers with such a high profile, just shows what a great job the series organisers have done,” he said.
“Ashley Seward and his team are committed to succeeding in TCR, and have been working very hard on the commercial aspects of the program as well as continuing to fine-tune the car, so I’m very motivated to reward them with some more good results this weekend.”
As with the opening round, this weekend’s event will feature one race on Saturday and two races on Sunday, with all three races live on SBS.
TCR Round 2 schedule
Friday, 7 June
12:00pm – Practice 1 (30 min)
2:25pm – Practice 2 (30 min)
Saturday, 8 June
11:30am – Qualifying (30 min)
2:15pm – Race 1 (30 min)
Sunday, 9 June
1:10pm – Race 2 (30 min)
2:20pm – Race 3 (30 min)
