Asian Motor Sports

A heavy rain shower 10 minutes before the start set the stage for an action packed and incident filled Formula V6 Asia by Renault Sprint Race.

Pole position man Hamad Al Fardan managed a textbook start. “Luck was on my side. It was a tricky race but I managed to hold on to my position and kept my lead through the first and second turn”.

Jeffrey Lee, was the first car out, spinning into retirement at the end of the first lap.

Positions changed again when second placed Chandhok got severely out of shape on lap 3 allowing Halliday, Ingham, Mikola and Lin to pass. Chandhok regained control of his car and continued the race in sixth, ahead of Denis Lian, Ken Lee and Michael Ho.

Towards the end of the seventh lap, Lin was trailing Mikola by half a second and made an ambitious charge on Mikola into the final turn. Lin locked his brakes on the still wet surface and made contact with the rear left side of Mikola’s car, ending both his and Mikola’s race.

“I had good practice and qualifying sessions but luck was not on my side today. I will definitely be trying to get ahead tomorrow and hope to be on the podium”, said a dejected Lin.

His charge on Al Fardan came to a tragic end on the ninth lap when he suffered a rear right deflation, immediately ending his race. “The mechanics are checking to see the cause of the problem. Hopefully it will be a dry race tomorrow so I can push early to try and get past as many cars as early on as possible”.

“It was a good race for me. I had a good start but made a small mistake at turn 11 but I managed to recover quickly and did not lose any ground” said Al Fardan during the post race interview.

As for Chandhok, “The race was quite tricky. I started out in front but made some mistakes and thankfully I managed to climb back up to the podium. I tried to make a charge on Seth (Ingham) but I didn’t manage to get ahead in time, maybe if there was one more lap”.