The China Touring Car Championship (CTCC) Race 2 was held at Zhuhai International Circuit (ZIC) on May 22 nd -23 rd . Changan Ford racing team, carrying 50kg extra weight, scored pole position and finished the Sunday race 1st and 5th. The double win vanished with the arrival of an ¡°overtaking under yellow¡± penalty to Martin.
Changan Ford Racing team showed up at ZIC with a new look, in line with the main brand of CFMA and brought even more visual impact to the fans. The Focus racing cars kept the blue & white base and featured the color bar with 8 colors which are the 8 color-options for the Focus road cars. Meanwhile, the racing car also put on the new slogan ¡°feel the difference¡±, setting a good example of the connection between the team and the manufacture.
Saturday Qualifying:
Most of the 2000cc drivers chose slick tires for qualifying. Changan Ford racing team's strategy was to get on track and warm up first, then head back to pit for tire-change by mid-stage of the session. After the tire-change, Rainey immediately set a lap 3 sec's faster and moved into the top 3 league. Tengyi with 90kg weight disadvantage, finished the session with a decent 9th. Martin set the best lap of the day (1:50.975) right after tire-change. In the end, Martin grabbed pole, Rainey 5th, Tengyi 9th and Andy 13th .
Sunday Race
At the start, 3 Honda blocked Rainey's way, and Martin did a remarkable job defending his lead. A small contact with Michael Ho affected Martin's speed, and Lo Ka Chun grabbed the opportunity and moved to the lead. Changan Ford racing team suffered half-troop-down after 3 laps: Rainey got sandwiched and failed to continue. Tengyi was hit in the rear by Henry Lee and ran into the tyre barrier. Yellow flag was shown and safety car was sent to lead the race. Martin passed Lo at T7 (the action got penalized in the end) before Tengyi's accident and managed to extend the gap at the restart. The 17 year-old Changan Ford driver Martin set the best lap of the day 1:50.602 and won the race, his teammate Andy finished the race 5th. Bad news came 5 hours after the race. Martin got penalized for overtaking under yellow. Thus, Andy moved up to 4th and Martin dropped to 6th .
Paul Hui, The project director of the Changan Ford racing team, said:¡± It was one of the most exciting race weeks but unfortunately the result was not to our favour. The team had to deal with a lot of factors this week; the extra weight that we have to carry as a result of the new WTCC style weight compensation system, the ever unpredictable weather in the area, and an action packed race with a lot of race accidents which basically most of our drivers were involved in. To close out this interesting week, our young driver, Martin Cao, won the race but lost it afterwards after he was penalized 30 seconds due to passing under yellow.
The team has shown extremely good spirit during the whole week trying to find the extra performance to compensate for the 50kg that we have to carry. I have to specially thank TEIN, our technical partner for suspension system, who immediately proposed a new damper system hoping to help us to gain back the edge. It is this kind of team spirit that dilutes the disappointment and maintains our fighting spirit for next race. Come watch us again in June and feel the difference!¡±
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