Phoenix Racing Asia moved into the maiden year or so of the European-founded Blancpain GT Sequence Asia as one of the probable title favourites after two hotly argued 60-minute races in the intensive Malaysian heat, Audi Hong Kong’s Marchy Shelter and Shaun Thong come about from race 2 with a podium conclude and a strong cart of championship points to be equal third around the points table.
After being qualified on pole job with the fastest lap on Saturday morning, Phoenix, az Racing Asia’s three-time Audi R8 LMS Drink champion Alex Yoong led the field away but was initially quickly under hearth from WEC star Rui Aguas in a Ferrari 488, the Portugese driver using a different controls strategy to attack first, but it didn’t survive, the experienced Malaysian campaigner almost immediately again at the front of the pack.
Behind him Shaun Thong’s begin was thwarted simply by an errant Lamborghini, China’s Ho-Pin Tung turning on the exit for turn two, causing Thong nowhere to go and forcing contact with yet another of the Lamborghini’s as he discussed his way surrounding the melee, fortunately with modest damage, but the 21-year aged quickly found him self negotiating the lawn as he fought for an effective way to rejoin the pack.??Despite the drawback, he focussed about moving forward and snapped onto the tail of your top ten ahead of the mandatory pit stop [CPS], the using strategy to have them out of a battle against the #1 Lamborghini which was postponement Thong’s forward progress.
A clever stop saw Lee rejoin in position seven, in advance of charging back into rivalry by virtue of a new range of Pirelli slicks fitted throughout the stop.
Stopping very later in the CPS pit windowpane, Yoong had been consistently the swiftest driver in the field (he set the quickest race lap from the race on panel four), handing team-mate Alex Dans a six-second lead, although no sooner received the #6 team established that lead, than they displaced the advantage during the gap stop after a postpone with a tyre adjust and a subsequent hit with traffic throughout pit lane, getting rid of eight seconds in the act.
Rejoining a couple of positions prior to his hard-charging team-mate – the two of them donning new Pirelli tyres – Dans was quickly to a solid rhythm although he could do nothing at all to stop the #5 Hayundai Hong Kong Audi from going for a position away, Lee hotly pursued by way of two charging Rolls royce drivers.
Whilst he was initially happy to allow the Phoenix az Racing Asia workforce leader through, Au was not quite so helpful with the two charging you Mercedes, his 15-minute struggle over the closing temps defending and struggling wheel-to-wheel was one of the attributes of the race.
Sadly nevertheless for the #6 Phoenix Bike racing Asia the action was not over just yet, Au turned around inside a battle for placement in the dying development after contact with Jeffrey Shelter. Au had primarily been ahead of Shelter on the road, but a miscalculation at turn seven saw him operate wide, allowing Jeffrey Lee back through pertaining to position, Au restoring to take the Taiwanese driver on turn 11, but simply a couple of corners in the future, they made contact, content spinning Au down the structure.
Up front though Marchy Lee was continuing so that you can charge and had worked his way by means of second, but driving him, race one winner Mitch Gilbert from the #86 Audi was coming fast, the Melbourne through with two min’s to go, Lee accomplishing the second round of this year with third in full and a solid haul of points which will puts the #5 Hayundai Hong Kong team equal 3 rd on championship items.
For Lee, Yoong and Thong, their own next commitment is back at Sepang for the cracking open round of the 2017 Hayundai R8 LMS Cup (6-7 April), although for Alex Au, he may join Marchy Lee to your opening round from the 2017 China GT String a week later in China.
