Asian Formula Renault 09's final round: Day clinches championship; SA SILVA 1 st runner-up

The Asian Formula Renault championship (AFR) held the 2009 final race at Zhuhai International Circuit (ZIC) on 14 th -15 th , November. The championship managed to keep the champion title as suspense to the final round and the AFR drivers put up an exciting show.

Saturday Qualify

Qualifying started at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday under cold weather. Alon Day did a 1:38.2 to take back the lead from SA SILVA in lap 2 and managed to better his laptimes in the next five laps and successfully wowed us by setting the pole lap in lap 8 (1:36.8). Luis SA SILVA set a 1:37.6 on his last lap. Thus, SA SILVA grabbed the other front row position for Sunday's first race. Ferigutti 3 rd with Zhang Shanqi (PTRS team) and Zhang Zhiqiang (March 3 racing team) 4 th and 5 th , respectively.

Sunday Race

The 11 th round started at 11:25 Sunday morning under cloudy and cold weather. Day started well and led the race into T1 followed by Shanqi Zhang and Zhiqiang Zhang. After all the cars left the grid, fans saw SA SILVA's car had stalled on the grid, unable to restart. Marshals rushed out to assist, but when SA SILVA rejoined the race he was already 20 seconds behind the fleet. After one lap, car No.30 ran into the wall at T14 and retired from the race. In lap 3, Luca Ferigutti ran off the track and also retired. In lap 9, Terence Chan's front suspension experienced problems and he ran off the track on the main straight. SA SILVA did an overtake show to finish 5 th . In the end, Day won the race by almost 11 seconds with Zhang Shanqi and Zhang Zhiqiang 2 nd and 3 rd , respectively. Li Zhicong, the young driver from PTRS racing team, finished 4 th .

The final round started at 2:55 in the afternoon. During the warm up lap M3 driver Zhiqiang Zhang ran into a gravel trap and failed to join the competition. As the race started, Day ran to the lead followed by Zhang Shanqi. SA SILVA got off to a good start and moved immediately to 3 rd , following Zhang Shanqi very aggressively. Li Zhicong and Ringbom were 4 th and 5 th . After 2 laps, SA SILVA overtook Zhang Shanqi and started to move closer to Day. After 6 laps of an aggressive chase, SA SILVA successfully passed Day at T1 and managed to lead the race to the end. Alon Day finished 2 nd with Zhang Shanqi 3 rd . Li Zhicong and Ringbom finished the race 4 th and 5 th , respectively.

The 2009 AFR season is now concluded. In the International category, the top 3 drivers are all teenagers: Alon Day from Top Speed Racing team grabbed the championship title with Luis SA SILVA (Asia Racing team) capturing 1 st runner-up and Zhang Zhiqiang (March 3 racing team) 2 nd runner-up. Asia Racing Team won the team title with March 3 racing team 2 nd and Top Speed racing team 3 rd . In the Asia category, Zhang Zhiqiang won the drivers' championship title. Li Zhicong from PTRS racing team was the 1 st runner-up and Jiang Tengyi from FRD racing team was the 2 nd runner-up. PTRS racing team won the team championship in the Asia category, with FRD racing team grabbing 1 st runner-up and March 3 racing team taking 2 nd runner-up.

Alon Day, the newly-crowned 2009 AFR champion, said after the race:”I am very happy to win the title. It was indeed a mission accomplished and I feel very confident for the next season. I will go to Macau to race in F-BMW in the coming week and hope I can get some good results. For next season, I would like to race in F3 if the sponsorship is good.” Luis SA SILVA said:”Today's 1 st round was a disaster but that is auto sport, it was just a lack of luck. The good thing is my sponsors are happy with my performance in 2009 and if everything goes well, I will join German F3 in 2010.”

The AFR championship just finished its 10th exciting season and I appreciate the effort contributed by my staffs, all the teams, the officials and our promotion partners during these turbulent times of economic crisis. In 2009, AFR successfully brought some good surprises to China motorsport as several drivers took turns leading the series, creating great suspense as to who would take the championship up until the very final round and met its commitment to send good seed to competition of higher level. I am now even more confident to build AFR into a good solid & win-win platform for promising drivers, the teams and all cooperative partners in the coming year.

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