Jay Hanson makes team switch for remaining rounds of the season
Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series young gun Jay Hanson will continue to race his Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce TCR, but it will be prepared by Melbourne Performance Centre for the remainder of the season.
Hanson makes the switch from Ashley Seward Motorsport where he was teammate to Lee Holdsworth.
“Obviously it was a tough decision for us and it involved talking to a number of my mentors in where they thought I’d get the most benefit, with all leads pointing to MPC,” said Hanson.
MPC is the current agent for Audi, Volkswagen and Cupra TCR models in Australia, but Hanson believes the team will be able to adapt to his Alfa Romeo relatively quickly.
“MPC is predominately an Audi team, so we’re not expecting the world in terms of bringing an Alfa Romeo and telling MPC to set it up,” said Hanson “For the rest of this year, I’m going to take it as a learning curve whilst increasing my track mileage.
“If MPC didn’t think it was up to the challenge, they would have told us so. It’s great to see they’re willing to give a crack with the Alfa.”
MPC drivers Chaz Mostert and Luke King currently lock out the top two positions in their Audi RS3 LMS TCRs with three rounds remaining.
It’s this experience that Hanson is hoping to take advantage of as he aims to continue his development in Supercheap Auto TCR Australia.
“I’m going to try and learn as much as I can off these guys,” Hanson emphasised.
“To have the likes of current Supercars driver Chaz Mostert as my teammate in TCR, it’s quite awesome to be honest. And to have likes of Luke King who has been able to take it up to Chaz, I’m really looking forward to working with those guys.”
A test day is expected prior to the next round of Supercheap Auto TCR Australia at Sandown on September 17-19 just to get Hanson accustomed to his new team.
“We haven’t had a test day as of yet with the team, but I believe they should be able to get the Alfa set-up to the way I like and we can go from there,” he explained.
“I’m really looking forward to seeing how the team adapt to a new car.”
The next round of the Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series will be held at Sandown International Raceway on September 17-19.