{"id":305577,"date":"2023-06-08T09:45:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-08T09:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=305577"},"modified":"2023-06-08T10:59:23","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T10:59:23","slug":"mystery-surrounds-title-contenders-surprise-car-swap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=305577","title":{"rendered":"Mystery surrounds title contender's surprise car swap"},"content":{"rendered":"

TCR Australia Series<\/a> title hopeful Tom Oliphant has been forced into a last-minute car change, but the reason behind it has been shrouded in secrecy.<\/p>\n

Oliphant, a BTCC race winner, moved to Australia this year to contest the touring car series with Ashley Seward Motorsport.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He debuted at Symmons Plains Raceway in an Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce but swapped to a brand new Lynk & Co 03 for round two at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit.<\/p>\n

Stan Sport is the only place to watch all the 2023 SpeedSeries.<\/strong><\/em> All the action streaming ad free, live and on demand<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

However, the team has been forced to roll the Alfa Romeo back out of the garage for round three of the season at Winton Motor Raceway.<\/p>\n

\"Tom<\/p>\n

Wide World of Sports understands the Lynk & Co sedan suffered a terminal failure during a recent test at the rural Victorian circuit.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, team owner Seward was approached for comment but declined to speak on the matter.<\/p>\n

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Several sources indicated to Wide World of Sports the issue was engine related.<\/p>\n

Asked for comment, Seward said Geely Group would provide a statement in due course.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

A post-test press release issued on Wednesday quoted Oliphant as saying the team had a "superb day" at Winton.<\/p>\n

"As with any new car, we're learning new things in every session and we were able to make great improvements throughout the day," said Oliphant.<\/p>\n

"I've become comfortable with the track, it's extremely stop-start in nature, even compared to what I've driven in the UK, but it certainly shares a similar style to what I've spent many years driving."<\/p>\n

The switch to the older car is a big blow for Oliphant and his title aspirations having acquired the Lynk & Co with the intention of improving his results in the series.\ufeff<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/StanSportAU\/status\/1666706445524692992<\/a><\/p>\n

The Alfa Romeo was not the quickest car at Symmons Plains, although it has good results historically at Winton.<\/p>\n

Dylan O'Keeffe took a podium in 2019, the last time the TCR Australia Series featured at Winton.<\/p>\n

Oliphant sits 10th in the standings on 164 points while Bailey Sweeny leads on 252 points for HMO Customer Racing.\ufeff<\/p>\n

Practice at Winton gets underway on Friday with two practice sessions before qualifying and race one on Saturday followed by two races on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Race Winton, the fourth SpeedSeries event of this year, takes place across June 9-11.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by <\/strong><\/em>clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TCR Australia Series title hopeful Tom Oliphant has been forced into a last-minute car change, but the reason behind it has been shrouded in secrecy. […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":305579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305577"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=305577"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":305582,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305577\/revisions\/305582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/305579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=305577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=305577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=305577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}