Another victory for Hanson

After what was a particular difficult Bathurst campaign, young gun, Jay Hanson, was back on top at Sydney Motorsport Park in his Audi RS 3 LMS Gen II for Round 4 of the TCR Australia series.

Leading from start to finish, Hanson crossed the line in the Melbourne Performance Centre (MPC)  RS 3 LMS (the only second generation RS 3 LMS in then southern hemisphere) some 1.8 seconds ahead of Luke King in his privateer Hyundai to give him his third win of the season. It was a particularly triumphant return to the winner’s circle after a difficult trip to Bathurst in Round 3, that saw him crash heavily in practice, severely damaging his car. Fortunately for Hanson, he was able to swap to MPC’s first generation Audi that was raced by Luke King last year so that he could continue for the weekend and get valuable time behind the wheel at the famed circuit.

At the time, MPC team owner Troy Russell said that the damage to the new car could have been repaired had it not been the Easter long weekend, but as MPC had brought the spare car for just such a contingency, the decision was made for Jay to drive the Generation 1 car over the weekend.

It was the only setback in a season that has thus far seen Hanson at the pointy end of the field. Kicking off at Simmons Plains in Tassie, the 18-year-old was one to watch, with blistering pace in practice that he turned into points winning his second race and finishing top 10 in the other two races of the opening round.

He followed that effort up with another strong performance in the next round at Phillip Island.  “Straight out of the trailer in opening practice we set the fastest lap of the day, so that was really positive,” Hanson said. But he and MPC went one better at the Island, with Hanson claiming is maiden pole position in TCR which set the platform for another dominant racing performance.

“We had very solid pace at Phillip Island, I converted my first pole position into another race win, which is absolutely awesome,” he said at the time, bagging his second win in as many rounds.

Following the hiccup at Bathurst, the top step of the podium was a welcome sight again after racing this weekend. Starting from pole position on the top-10-inverted grid, Hanson took another start-to-finish win for the Melbourne Performance Centre-run AWC MPC Racing team to see him comfortably in fifth in the driver standings with a 56-point deficit to the series leader.

The TCR Australia championship takes a break now before heading to Queensland Raceway in August for Round 5.