TCR Australia Series underdog's season smashed by 'disappointing' known issue
Zac Soutar says he's disappointed his TCR Australia Series season was needlessly curtailed by an issue that was known about by Audi.
The privateer was in red hot form at the Symmons Plains season opener only for his RS 3 LMS TCR car to suffer a driveshaft failure.
Will Brown, who also pilots one of the German-built cars, suffered an identical failure.
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Attempts were made to get the driveshafts fixed but were ultimately unsuccessful.
Zac Soutar's Audi RS 3 LMS is one of the newest cars to the TCR Australia Series. Daniel Kalisz
Soutar said Audi knew the driveshaft was a weak point of the second-generation car, although the privateer team was unaware until theirs let go.
That left the team frustrated, having not been able to prepare the necessary spares inventory to accommodate for failures.
It means Soutar comes into the second round of the season at Phillip Island without any points while Brown has just 10 from scoring pole position.
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Soutar said Melbourne Performance Centre, the official Audi customer support team, has stocked up on the parts since.
While he's optimistic the cars won't have the same issues at Phillip Island where loads are lower, he admitted he was a little bit nervous it could happen again.
"Obviously it's a known problem," Soutar told Wide World of Sports.
Zac Soutar with his engineer. Daniel Kalisz
"We have heaps of spares but yeah, a little bit frustrating that maybe it was a known problem that Audi knew about before round one and it would have been good if they had given us the heads up.
"But anyway, I guess that's water under the bridge and now we've got plenty of parts in case it does pop up again.
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"Phillip Island, it's not a very heartbreaking circuit and we're not doing anywhere near the amount of laps," he added.
"It should definitely hold for the weekend and hopefully if it does, we'll get it crack tested afterwards, but I don't think it's gonna be a problem."
Zac Soutar is expecting to be a front-runner at Phillip Island. Daniel Kalisz
Soutar is yet to fully show his hand in the series, although is expected to be up the front in one of the series' newest cars.
The Audi was a formidable car on one-lap pace in 2022 and in the hands of Jay Hanson won at Phillip Island.
The Honda Civic Type R remains the car to beat, however.
Fabian Coulthard took two race wins at the circuit last year and Tony D'Alberto was quickest in Friday's practice sessions.
In any case, Soutar expects to be up the front come race time.
"We want to be in the mix of podiums, that's why we're here," said Soutar.
"I know we're privateers but been here long enough to be the pointy end.
"You never know who's gonna be quick and who's not gonna be, so we'll just see what happens. We'll roll with the punches.
"We've sort of punched above our weight but in saying that, I do have very clever team of people with me by my side that help make it happen."
Round two of the TCR Australia Series takes place this weekend at Phillip Island.
Qualifying gets underway at 11:35am on Saturday morning with the opening race of the weekend at 4:15pm, which will last 30 minutes.
Sunday will see two 30-minute races, the first at 11:30am and second at 4:15pm.
Stan Sport will carry live, ad-free coverage of the weekend's racing with 9Gem broadcasting three hours of free-to-air coverage from 2pm on Saturday.
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