O’Keeffe sweeps Sydney practice in new Peugeots debut
The penultimate SpeedSeries round has begun at Sydney Motorsport Park with Dylan O’Keeffe showing rapid speed in the Lynk & Co.
Whilst all eyes were on the debut of the brand new, Aussie designed and built Peugeot P51 308 TCRs driven by Ben Bargwanna and Jordan Cox, it was the Lynk & Co that stole the show.
O’Keeffe took both Friday practice sessions of TCR Australia at Sydney Motorsport Park.
Proceedings started in wet conditions, creating a challenging debut for the new Peugeots.
But it was the older spec Peugeot 308s that pushed O’Keeffe with Aaron Cameron coming within 0.0110s of the top time of 1:46.0332.
Ryan Casha was thirds while Cox was the leading 308 P51 a further six tenths back.
Only seven of the 12 cars took to the track in the 30-minute session.
Ben Bargwanna in the new Peugeot 308 P51.
Practice 2 was in dry conditions, providing a more representative picture and again O’Keeffe was on top, but only just.
This time the Wall Racing Honda of Tony D’Alberto was on point, being just 0.0882s short.
Completing the top four were the two Hyundais of Tom Oliphant and Josh Buchan, while the new Peugeots were more than 2s off the pace.
The session was not a simple one however with a car being stopped briefly bringing out the red flag.
Meanwhile, Cameron had an eventful time, having a slide at turn 4 before clashing with Zac Soutar.
Qualifying begins at 11.10 AEDT before the first of three races at 14.50.
Will Brown and Brad Schumacher end Friday in a league of their own in the GT World Challenge Australia.
The Brown and Schumacher Audi R8 was the only car to be in the 1m25s window.
Brown’s 1:25.9856 was a massive seven tenths faster than the Jayden Ojeda/Paul Lucchitti Mercedes in Practice 1.
Whilst the Ferraris were faster in Practice 2 with Chaz Mostert/Liam Talbot leading the way with a 1:26.4654, it was still almost half a second away than the earlier time.
GT qualifying is at 10.40 AEDT before the long three-hour race at 18.45 AEDT under lights.
Rylan Gray (Ford Mustang GT4) and Antonio Astuti (Mercedes) shared practice honours in GT4 Australia.
The opening Porsche Sprint Challenge race is about to begin with Oscar Targett again on pole with a 1:29.9823, three tenths clear of Ryan Suhle.
Ryan Macmillan was very fast leading all practice sessions in Australian Formula Open.
In Radical Cup Australia Mark Brame and Peter Paddon were on the pace.
Saturday SpeedSeries Sydney schedule
| Start | Finish | Category | Duration | Session |
| 14:10* | 14:35 | Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge Australia Series | 0:25:00 | Race 3 |
| 14:50* | 15:20 | Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series | 0:30:00 | Race 1 |
| 15:30* | 15:55 | First Focus Radical Cup Australia | 0:25:00 | Race 2 |
| 16:05* | 16:25 | Giti Australian Formula Open | 0:20:00 | Race 1 |
| 16:40* | 17:40 | Monochrome GT4 Australia | 1:00:00 | Race 1 |
| 17:50* | 18:20 | Meguiar’s Australian Production Cars | 0:30:00 | Race 2 |
| 18:25 | 18:45 | Grid Walk: Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia | 0:20:00 | Grid Walk |
| 18:45* | 21:45 | Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia | 3:00:00 | Race |
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