With three Focus occupying the front of the starting grid of the 2000cc class race, the Changan Ford Racing Team is confident that the performance and set up of the cars should be in a dominating position only with a minor worry that a repeat of the messy start of race one last month could throw a curve ball at us.
The team decided to have Rainey, who is occupying the pole to point his car towards the inside hoping he can get a good start and take the inside line into T1. Andy was told to move left to take the outside line. Rainey had a reasonable start but not good enough and went into T1 side by side with Car 11 Zhang Hanbiao. Both Tengyi and Andy had good start and Andy took over the lead from the outside. Tengyi became the victim of the start when he went into T1 side by side with Rainey and Zhang Hanbiao and was squeezed to the grass losing so many positions in the process. The top three drivers started a fight immediately and by turn 9, Rainey took back the lead and Andy fell back to third...
With a bit faster straight line speed, Zhang overtook Rainey on lap 5. Andy and Rainey were told by the team to stay behind taking turns to push car 11 hard and force him to drive the non racing line to defend. By lap 10, Zhang's car started to lose traction, most probably as a result of tire problem. With the huge cheering of the Changan Ford supporters in the grandstand, Andy passed Zhang first in lap 11 and Rainey passed Zhang in lap 12. They finished the race in this sequence and captured the Team Championship for Changan Ford.
Tengyi finished the race in 4th position after fighting his way from 11th after the bad starting incident. By lap 3, he was 10th; by lap 4, he climbed to 9th; by lap 5, he jumped to 5th; and by lap 6, he moved to 4th. He then decided to drive with his comfortable speed realizing the gap between himself and the lead group is too much.
Thanks to the most reliable and perfectly balanced Focus cars, the team enjoys another successful week and will start packing for the third race of the season in Chengdu in the beautiful Western Sichuan province."
