2025 Touring Car Masters Round 1 Recap – Sydney Motorsport Park
Round 1 of the 2025 Touring Car Masters series was held at Sydney Motorsport Park on the last weekend of February, as part of the season opener for the Supercars Championship.
For the Multispares team, it was a quick turnaround after wrapping up the final round of 2024 in early December. At their last visit to SMP, Ryan and the car were quick, winning two races. With that in mind, the crew set the Torana up in the workshop with the same settings and headed south from Brisbane, confident they would be racing at the front.
After practice, it was clear the track conditions were very different — lap times were down across all categories and Ryan was left scratching his head wondering where the speed had gone. Heading into qualifying, they made some slight adjustments. Although the top 10 cars were tightly packed, Ryan ended up 6th after the 20-minute session.
In Race 1, Ryan got a good start, but heading into Turn 1 found himself squeezed on the outside of three cars, resulting in contact that pushed the Multispares Torana out onto the edge of the track. Ryan lost several positions but fought back hard to finish 9th.
With the car not as quick as it was mid-2024 in cooler conditions, the team made some suspension changes to find more drive off the corners, suspecting the engine may have been slightly down on power. It’s worth noting that at this round last year, the engine had overheated and was damaged, forcing the team to build a spare from parts sourced from other teams due to the shortage of small-block Chev parts both in Australia and America. A brand-new engine has since been ordered, with a nine-month wait expected.
In Race 2, Ryan had a solid race, starting 9th and finishing 5th, though the Torana was still struggling to reach maximum revs at the end of the main straight. The team made two more changes:
- Fitting a lower diff ratio to help the car rev higher
- Softening the front sway bar to give more front-end grip and better corner exit speed
The changes worked. In Race 3, Ryan was the fastest car on the track, drove brilliantly to finish 2nd, and clocked the fastest lap of the race. It was a tough weekend with plenty of car-to-car contact, but Ryan definitely had his elbows out — the in-car footage says it all!
Next Round:
Round 2 will be held at Symmons Plains Raceway in Tasmania, just south of Launceston, from May 9th–11th.
Catch all the action live on FoxSports and Kayo, and stay updated by following the Multispares Racing Facebook and Instagram pages.
2025 Confirmed Rounds
- Thrifty Sydney 500
21–23 Feb Sydney Motorsport Park, Australia - Tasmania Super 440
9–11 May Buckby Motors Symmons Plains Raceway, Australia - Betr Darwin Triple Crown
20–22 Jun Hidden Valley Raceway, Australia - Race Winton
22–24 Aug Winton Motor Raceway, Australia - The Bend 500
12–14 Sep Shell V-Power Motorsport Park, Australia - Repco Bathurst 1000
9–12 Oct Mount Panorama Motor Racing Circuit Bathurst, Australia - Penrite Oil Sandown 500
- 14–16 Nov Sandown Raceway, Australia
