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2010 AFR Series Race 2: Double win for Martin Cao |
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For Immediate Distribution
July 21th , 2010
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After the first points race in Zhuhai two months ago, AFR Series Race 2 travelled to Chengdu International Circuit on July 16 th -18 th , joining China Superbike Championship (CSBK) race weekend. The qualifying and Round 1 were held on Saturday while Round 2 took place on Sunday. Saturday qualifying Sunny / Dry / Slick Tires Qualifying started at 11:50 in Saturday morning, Rainey He and Martin Cao set excellent lap time soon after, with the advantage that they are both familiar with the Chengdu track. Martin Cao continued his recent ly great success and snatched another pole position , followed by Sandy Stuvik, Rainey positioned third. Tin Sritrai from ART and female driver Samin Briceno from Top Speed qualified forth and fifth respectively. Beijing lady driver Zhang Ran put on her debute on AFR race here in Chengdu Circuit. Although she qualified last on the grid, with the observation on her racing line we could tell that she was pushing hard, using her skills and experiences that she learned from all her previous races.
Saturday Round 1 Sunny / Dry / Slick Tires Round 1 of the race started at 17:40. Martin Cao had an excellent start from the front row and increased his lead from Sandy Stuvik to about 1sec in just 2 laps, accelerated his time advantage over Sandy Stuvik to almost 1sec per lap. Sandy Stuvik on the other hand could not match Martin Cao's pace and at the same time, had to fend off the attack by the third place driver Rainey He, who had an excellent race pace and tried to get pass Sandy in the first three laps. However, with the strong defence shown by Sandy Stuvik, Rainey He decided to play safe and waited for the chance. Samin Briceno, who targeted in getting more points in this race, lost her fourth place to Tin Sritrai, as Tin overtook her at the end of the race. In the end, Martin Cao won the race with an impressive 11 seconds margin over the second place finisher Sandy Stuvik. Rainey He finished the race in third, Tin Sritrai took position fourth and Samin Briceno fifth.Sunday Round 2 Rainy / Wet / Slick Tires The weather forecast was calling for a high chance of shower but it did not materialize. Therefore, all drivers started the race with slick tires. However, the weather changed to drizzle just before the starting of the race and the track did become quite slippery . The red lights went off and Martin Cao held his first place and was not in a hurry to create a gap due to the track condition. T he cars moved in close formation for the first couple laps. After two laps, Martin Cao started to pick up speed up and managed to create a larger gap. Sandy Stuvik and Rainey He separated in a distance and could not affect each other but also failed to shorten the difference between them and the leader. They changed their race to a cruising mode trying to bring the cars home safely . Zhicong Li tried to defence his position from Samin Briceno's attack. However, he made a slight mistake towards the end of the race allowing Samin Briceno and Tim Sritrai passing him simultaneously. At the leading pack, Martin Cao was the first one to cross the c heckered flag with a big lead, follow him was Sandy Stuvik and Rainey He . These three men stood on top of the podium in both Asian Category and International Category again.
For more info please go to FRDwebsite:www.frdsports.com |
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