It was hyped as the clash of the season. Toyota gatecrashed the Super Car Class 1-GT3 party in Buriram last weekend with its sensational new M101-86 and a new star driver behind the wheel. And it didn’t disappoint one single bit as it went straight up against the Camaro. The Reiter Vattana Motorsport monster in the hands of Khun Tomáš Enge was brutally quick on the long straights, the Toyota displayed incredible cornering speed and that quite simply cancelled each other’s advantage out. With two world-class drivers in the cockpits – Race 1 turned into a duel that is one for the Thai motorsport history books. Thailand Super Series (TSS) had rocked up in Buriram and showed the city exactly what motorsport is all about.
That was Race 1. In the second race Khun Kazuya Oshima made it two out of two to give the Toyota M101-86 a perfect start to its new racing life in TSS, while the other winner as the shadows lengthened over Buriram was Khun Chonsawat Asavahame who notched up his second maximum points score of the weekend to put himself clear in pole position to claim the Drivers’ title in Bangsaen. Reiter Vattana Motorsport has put the Teams’ title out of anyone else’s reach already and now in Buriram they have almost done the same with the Drivers’ crown.
And then there is Super Car Class 2-GTM. It’s quite hard to put this all down so much happened on track, but certainly some of the most exciting races in recent memory were dished up in the North East of Thailand and there is now just four points between the top three drivers in the championship standings.
TSS is all about competitive, close fought racing that delivers action, glamour and excitement for the fans – and that’s exactly the blueprint that was delivered as the series rocked into a new catchment zone last weekend. When the sunlight faded away on Sunday evening and the race winners sprayed the champagne, TSS had put on a show that’s exactly what the ‘New Era’ is all about. We picked up new fans in the region and as the show continues to grow the action was streamed live over the internet, attracting tens of thousands, to bolster the live HD TV coverage in True Sports.
Super Car Class 1-GT3 Saturday
Anticipation was heavy in the air and in the massive grandstand as the Super Car Class 1-GT3 formed up on the grid late on Saturday afternoon – and the star names in the big cars started slugging it out from the rolling start. At the green lights the Toyota had a tardy start, caught on the hop, and Khun Kazuya lost ground. Khun Tomáš went for the outside line but it was Khun Chonsawat that got a blinder down the inside to lead the pack into Turn 1.
A couple of turns later and the Vattana duo went wide and the Toyota nipped through. Then out of Turn 5 Khun Jack Lemvard, starting a race for the first time in a Reiter Vattana Gallardo GT3, crossed it up on the damp track, was a passenger as he got onto the wet kerbs and there was contact with Khun Bobby Buncharoen in the #78 True Visions Lamborghini. Khun Jack was out on the spot while Khun Bobby was able to limp round for the rest of the race, albeit he would lose 5 laps by the end. It had taken two top runners out within half a lap.
But not to worry, after the Safety Car went in the first clash between the Toyota and the Camaro kicked off in earnest. And it didn’t disappoint one jot. Everyone was enthralled as the big brutal black Camaro and the low, sleek, almost ‘formula-style’ red, white and silver Toyota locked horns, the two cars inseparable for lap after lap. This is what TSS is all about; the most exciting, most dramatic and most glamorous racing that can be seen in Thailand. The people of the North East got to see the drama of top-level motorsport right on their doorstep.
The battle raged over the 15-lap race and after swapping positions several times the laurels eventually went to the Toyota, Khun Kazuya romping away over the final few laps as the Camaro suffered power steering failure leaving Khun Tomáš to manfully wrestle the mighty machine to the flag.
Khun Kazuya took the checkered flag for a quite sensational debut win for the M101-86. The new machine, the first car in the world to be designed especially for Super GT’s next-generation GT300 regulations, had delivered on its TSS debut.
For Toyota Team Owner Khun Suttipong Smittachartch it was a very satisfying result as he’s been waiting for this new car for around two years watching as the project slowly took shape in the workshops of top Japanese racecar constructor, Dome. His lengthy commitment to the project, which had remained top secret for a long time, and his decision to plump for a raw new car before it had even tested, had paid off instantly. It was even more satisfying too as he’s just watched his cars take a 1-2 in the Class 2-GTM race. “I’m very happy, we got the first to position in class 2 and in Class 1 we won the first time [out] so I’m very happy about that,” he said. “It was a hard race because the Camaro is quite fast and Mr Oshima pushed very hard and the car and the engine are okay but the tyre is in the limit already.”
Khun Kazuya agreed after the race that he’s had to work hard for the victory. “It was a really tough race because Tomáš Enge is a really good driver and never makes a mistake and his car has the really good straight speed and my car has really good cornering speed,” the Japanese Super GT Lexus driver said.
He admitted that the two racecars had very different characteristics that evened them out over a whole lap. “In the first sector there was a big gap to him but I try to overtake on the third sector,” noted Khun Kazuya. “Once I try to go inside of him and he made a mistake and I could overtake. Then I think Enge had a problem as at the end of the race his pace was going down.”
In the end the Toyota’s winning margin was a healthy 49.525 seconds and Khun Kazuya also bagged the 
fastest lap of the race in 1:35.733 (149.87 km/h) seven-tenths faster than the Camaro’s best. Impressively that was set on the penultimate lap of the race meaning the new car is clearly very consistent and suffered little drop off.
The M101-86 is a brand new car and on its race debut, which took place here during the visit of Super GT a month ago (this is its second ever race), it suffered a lot of teething problems. In its first Super Car race it ran entirely trouble free for the 15 laps although team and driver reckoned there is still plenty of work to do on setup. But Khun Kazuya was happy with the car and he’s confident it can be developed into a regular winner. He also pointed out that there is room to extract more in terms of tyres. “The tyre was really good but the problem is it’s too hard,” he said. “It’s very consistent but we need more grip, but it’s good enough.”
He also enjoyed his first Super Car race and reckoned that the series is growing in strength. “It’s very competitive from what I saw,” said Khun Kazuya. “From the practice I tried maximum pushing and I tried to improve the car and I could win, but [it] wasn’t easy to win.”
In qualifying Khun Tomáš had planted the Camaro on pole for both races and while the he powered away at the front his teammate in the #28 Lamborghini got the best start and surged through into the lead. “Khun [Chonsawat] out braked me into the first corner, so I had a good start but he had a much better start and he went on the inside and I didn’t expect that and I kind of left the door open and he was there so I let him by,” explained the Czech driver.
“Then after Turn 3 me and Khun [Chonsawat] both ran wide and the Toyota passed us and then I passed Khun [Chonsawat] and then there was the Safety Car immediately,” he said. “Then after the Safety Car I tried to overtake the Toyota, I got a good setup on the start-finish straight and managed to pass him into the first corner then I kind of tried to build up some lead.”
Then an even duel played out – for lap after lap. “The difference between both cars is massive, I’m massively fast on the straight and he’s massively fast through the corners,” said Khun Tomáš. “So on one side of the track I pull away and on the other side of the track he’s on my bumper. We had a good battle.”
However by half distance it was clear the Camaro had a developing problem, smoke was coming out of the back of the car and in was increasing in intensity lap by lap. What couldn’t be seen from trackside though was that there was also smoke in the cockpit, as Khun Tomáš explained. “I knew from the beginning there is some issue because I had smoke in the car already on the first lap and then after half the race I saw big smoke in the mirrors in the back and I think it’s not going to last too long and then a few laps later the power steering failed completely,” he said.
“It was the oil from the power steering and the steering just went away. It’s impossible to drive with those massive 19-inch front tyres,” he continued. “So I just
backed off and I just try to finish the race as best as possible and I try to score some points but I think the problem is I’m trying to make up as much time as possible through the corners and cutting the corners heavily over the sausage kerbs and I’m just giving the power steering a hard time and I have to say at this moment the failure is on my side.”
However Khun Tomáš was able to nurse the car over the last few laps and he only slipped one place further, behind his teammate, to grab third position. For Khun Chonsawat, after a less promising qualifying session, he showed strong race pace right from the green lights and P2 gave him maximum points (as series newcomer Khun Kazuya isn’t registered to score points) and that put him on equal points with his teammate Khun Tomáš in the championship points standings overnight with one more race still to come over the weekend.
Behind the two Vattana Motorsport drivers came the #2 Porsche 997 GT3-R of Khun ‘Kiki’ Sak Nana. He had been on the backfoot early on after requiring an engine change during practice but got back in the groove during qualifying and then bounced back after a less smooth getaway from the lights in the first race. “It was good fun, I started at the third [position] but I got pushed out at the start,” he said. “I’m quite conservative the way I drive as I don’t want to have crash or accident so I go as smooth as possible and I was catching up after that.
“Then I had a battle with Chonsawat for a while and I’m pushing him for a bit and keep the pressure on him and then I overtook him for a short while,” the Krating Daeng driver continued. “But then my own mistake I underestimated the grip of the tyre, I thought there was a lot left and I look a corner to fast and got on the grass and then I spun. Then I went crazy and I set my fastest lap after I spun.”
Fifth and the final podium position went to Khun Umar Rahman. He was struggling in what was his first race in a GT3 car with an old engine that had been ‘borrowed’ at the very last minute when his regular unit lost a cylinder in practice and the replacement was clearly down on power, probably by at least 100 hp. “I was on slicks in slippery condition,” he reported afterwards. “I missed the first turn and went wide off limit. Then came bunch of Class 2 guys [and] I’ve been hit at Turn 2. My camber and alignment [was] gone then [so] I had to really control the car and could not really push the way I want.” Khun Bobby completed the finishers, but he toiled in 5 laps down.
Super Car Class 2-GTM Saturday
Khun Voravud Bhirombhakdi came into the weekend as the championship leader and he dug deep to plant the Singha Motorsport Team Thailand Ferrari 458 Challenge onto pole position for Race 1. However, as was expected, in the race the Italian sportscar struggled for pace on the drying track and it was his title rival, Khun Nattavude Charoensukhawatana who capitalised with victory to close up the gap to just 1 point and turn the Drivers’ title into a neck and neck two horse race
with three races remaining – Sunday’s final race in Buriram and then two in Bangsaen. He also helped Toyota Team Thailand deliver an impressive clean sweep of wins in the main Super Car classes on the opening day.
Khun Nattavude was however quite lucky to register the win; he came off the better after tangling with the Audi of Khun Henk J. Kiks in a battle for P1 during the dying minutes of the race. The B-Quik Racing R8 LMS Cup was comfortably the quickest car on the track, despite starting from the back end after Khun Henk has missed the small window of opportunity during qualifying when the track was drying out. “It’s a very tough fight for me today and of course I’m very happy with the result but I’m very regretful for Khun Henk as on the last lap in Turn 3 we were both deep and I was pushing quite hard and it’s slippy so there was contact,” said Khun Nattavude afterwards. “Henk stopped and I’m sorry about that, I didn’t want that.
“The car’s running not bad at all, I had some problems but they can be fixed for tomorrow,” he added. Khun Nattavude led home his teammate Khun Nattapong Horthongkum as the factory-entered 86s performed a clean sweep at the front. The gap between them was three seconds at the flag and, crucially, the #38 driver also took valuable points away from Khun Nattavude’s main Drivers’ title rival, Khun Voravud, who came home in P4.
Team Manager Khun Suttipong was delighted with the 1-2 finish, especially as Toyota had arrived in Buriram almost level pegging with Singha A Motorsport AAS Kiwi Racing Team in the Teams’ championship – this result allowed them to open out some daylight at the top, albeit overnight as there was still one more race to go. “Nattavude and Nattapong do a very good job today because my car is very heavy, we worry about the tyre, but we want to finish and make our team be Teams’ [championship] leader now,” he said.
A very impressive third overall went to Khun Sarun Sereethoranakul who was the first of the quartet of Porsche drivers to cross the line. This race saw the white Porsche 997 GT3 Cup switching onto Hoosier tyres, introducing this brand name into TSS for the first time. “I change to Hoosier and the character works well when it’s a very long distance and very hot but today with the track conditions the surface [is] not to hot so it takes time for me, three to four laps, to warm up and I got the best grip from the tyres then,” he says. It’s been a successful switch after a promising recent test at Bira Circuit and he confirms that the car will run on Hoosier tyres in Bangsaen. “We’re very happy with the tyres,” he adds.
He was also delighted with the result, P3 is his highest finish so far in TSS and that put him on the podium again. It was especially satisfying, as he had to fight back having dropped positions during the opening laps. “I’m very happy,” he said. “I missed out in the first and second lap and I try to take over a backmarker on the outside and he also went to the outside and three or four cars passed me.” He also posted the second fastest lap of the race in 1:42.221 (142.64 km/h).
Fourth place went to Khun Voravud. The ‘Prancing Horse’ simply didn’t have the pace to challenge the speed advantage of the Toyotas on the long straights and he was 13 seconds behind Khun Sarun at the flag as he drifted away. However the aim of the team this weekend was damage limitation, and Khun Voravud scored another 10 points. It was the best he could do but this driver was really digging deep to hold onto P4.
Making it two Porsches in the top-five was Khun Aekarat Discharoen; he turned in one of his trademark drives to be next home while sixth went to Khun Jakthong Navasoopanich in the only surviving Nissan GT-R R35. He nursed the car to the end after surviving an opening lap clash with Khun Kantasak Kusiri, which left him with bodywork damage.
Khun Jakthong had enjoyed his first race in the Nissan, but was aware that this is all about putting kilometres on the car and turning it into a competitive proposition. “The engine is quite good but we need some development for the gearbox as the gearbox isn’t shifting down so we use the brakes on the corners so it’s very difficult to drive fast so we try to finish the race and try to develop,” he said. “The car is a street car and we do have a lot to develop, so today I just try to maintain the speed and keep the data, try to finish and we run to the end so we have the data to develop.”
The Porsche driver meanwhile was out of the race on the spot with plenty of damage suffered to the right hand front wheel suspension and the bodywork between the wheel well and the door.
Khun Thomas Raldorf finally got a race start in with the #29 B-Quik Racing Porsche 997 GT3 Cup and he had a very clean run to seventh place. Wrapping up the finishers was Khun Craig Corliss in the Holden Commodore VE, which had sat out qualifying after a heavy shunt in practice.
The midday ‘Hot Laps’ session had provided Khun Craig with the perfect opportunity to shakedown and check out the rebuilt front end and so he would start the race from the back of the grid, as he explained on Saturday evening. “After getting the car all sorted we did 10 laps in the ‘Hot Laps’ session first and then in the race I had a great start, up to fourth or fifth spot by the end of Turn 2 and going quite strong,” said the New Zealander. “We certainly had the pace. Unfortunately on about lap 5 or 6 I was following a car and instead of looking at the track I looked at the car and he had the ability to turn quicker than me and I couldn’t and I had a spin, but then I did some good laps, did my fastest lap on lap 13 so was happy with that, did a 42.
Khun Henk in the B-Quik Racing Audi R8 LMS Cup led out the DNFs but he was the unquestioned star of the race. Starting from the back of the grid the Dutchman sliced his way through the field and by half distance he had the ‘bumblebee’ locked onto the back of the two leading Toyotas. He soon passed Khun Nattapong and then homed in on the race leader. Unfortunately after harrying Khun Nattavude, his move for the lead on the last lap ended up with the Audi off the track and out of the action.
However Khun Henk was upbeat afterwards, he commented that this was “the best race of my career” and, coming off the back of a successful trip to the Merdeka Sepang 12 Hours this summer, driver and car are really on song now and in winning contention. He also posted the fastest lap of the race in 1:40.753 (141.91 km/h) on lap 9 and that was a whopping second and a half quicker than the next best time.
Khun Visarut Chotiwitsavaitkul dropped out with two laps remaining in the Vattana Motorsport-run #27 Lamborghini Gallardo LP520 while after a fighting early drive Khun Traitanit Chimtawan was gone on lap 7.
“I got a lot of trouble,” Khun Traitanit admitted afterwards. “The car feels good, feels powerful, but it has a lot of weight with the full fuel tank so I try to make a good start and after the start I got third place and I plan to wait until the fuel goes down and the car gets lighter and I will fight again. But after the Safety Car goes in and the race restarts something happened with my front left tyre and I cannot turn and I have to pit and the brakes are locked and that’s it.”
Khun Kantasak was the race’s first retirement as he dropped out on the opening lap while the #17 Mazda RX-8 of Khun Pete Thongchua was a non starter. The car had been upgraded in time for the weekend with a new aero pack. However unexpected electrical problems saw the team concerned about the potential of a fire and also being off the pace so the entry was scratched. It was a disappointing result for the Rotary Revolution mechanics after they had put in a lot of hard work to ready the car but it still gained a lot of attention in the garage all weekend
Super Car Class 1-GT3 Sunday
As the tension built up on Sunday afternoon to the second race of the weekend, there was real anticipation up in the towering grandstand as well as down in the pitlane. Everyone was expecting another titanic 15 lap long tussle between the Toyota and the Camaro in the blistering Buriram heat.
However the first sign that this wasn’t going to be a case of ‘Round 2’ came just minutes before the grid was cleared. Suddenly the Reiter Vattana engineers whipped the massive black bonnet off the Camaro and were delving down behind the engine. Khun Tomáš, who should have been relaxed and focusing in the cockpit, was out, helmet off and also peering into the engine bay. The fears of the team overnight, that the power steering problems could come back, had just been realised. The Camaro would lead the pack away at the green lights and take P1 into Turn 1 but Khun Tomáš would be out of the race after a single lap.
Reiter Vattana Motorsport still had plenty of cards to play though and at the green lights the Lamborghinis of Khun Chonsawat and Khun Jack both made fast starts, the
former up from sixth on the grid the latter gained a place from third, and they were side up side into
Turn 1 with the #28 car having the run on the inside while Khun Kiki, who had qualified in an impressive P2, locked right in on their exhaust tail pipes. Khun Bobby, Khun Kazuya and Khun Umar were just behind.
By the end of the first lap Khun Chonsawat had pulled out 2 seconds over Khun Jack who had the Toyota all over him while just behind them the Camaro peeled off into the pitlane to retire. Then the Toyota vs Camaro battle of Race 1 replayed itself as a Toyota vs Lamborghini battle as Khun Kazuya dispensed with Khun Jack and closed onto the rear of Khun Chonsawat. The Vattana driver dug deep to fend off the Toyota – but he also had to keep one eye firmly on the Drivers’ championship, with Khun Tomáš out the opportunity was there to virtually assure himself the title if he could achieve a big helping of points.
After several laps spent swarming all over the black and white Lamborghini, Khun Kazuya dived through and he then romped away into the distance. Mindful that P3 was a long way behind him, Khun Chonsawat backed off and the gap between the two cars at the finish was 21.444 seconds.
Khun Kazuya also set the fastest lap of the race, in 1:36.287 (167.03 km/h), posted on lap 13. He was pleased with the result but reported that overnight car changes had turned the M101-86 into a very different beast. “Today was a different situation to yesterday,” said the Japanese driver. “I changed setup from yesterday to less downforce to get more speed but in the technical section I had no grip, it was very difficult to drive, but I could overtake Lamborghini.”
His only difficulty had come at the rolling start where he was once again a bit tardy in picking up momentum. “I started from fourth and the other cars come with really good straightline speed,” he said. “Today the track condition wasn’t so good, some cars oil leaking or something, then very slippery and difficult to drive.”
For Team Manager Khun Suttipong it was the perfect end to the weekend. A raw new racecar that still has a lot more to be extracted from it, two wins out of two on its TSS race debut was the best ever debut result for a new car for this long running team.
“I’m happy, because we bring this car to join Super Car Class 1 and to win races,” he said. “It’s the first race [in] this car for Mr Oshima, so sure I’m very happy. It’s new and under development, it’s not finished yet so it’s a good job.” This race was all about testing and getting used to the new M101-86, with engineers from the car’s builder, Dome, and Super GT organisers’, GT Association, supplementing the crew from Toyota Team Thailand. Toyota has really announced its arrival in the top class in some style.
The Toyota wasn’t the only winner either – his second runners up spot of the weekend bagged Khun Chonsawat a second maximum haul of points to give him 40 points from two days in Buriram. He came into this race with a slender 5 point deficit to Khun Tomas and after Race 1 he had wiped out that gap. Thanks to the Czech driver’s early bath, he’s now opened that lead out to a very healthy 20 points and all he has to do in Bangsaen really is to steer clear of the walls if he’s to nail down the title.
The Vattana Team Owner called on all his experience to drive smoothly and consistently and he hasn’t finished off the podium all season, his tally is two wins, two seconds and two fourths. For the record Khun Chonsawat now stands on 240 points with Khun Tomáš on 220 points and Khun Bobby on 195 points. Khun Sanchai Engtrakul is fourth on 126 points while after missing the first round Khun Kiki has clawed his way up to fifth and has 122 points.
Meanwhile, Reiter Vattana Motorsport had already put the Teams’ title to bed at Bira so it’s been a really impressive season for the Bangkok-based team, which has though big, turned up in the paddock big – and delivered big.
After being caught in an incident the day before Khun Bobby bounced back with a repaired car that wasn’t really up to the job and third place was an excellent reward for his efforts, albeit he cruised in more than a minute behind the Toyota.
Another driver to deserve his trip to the podium was Khun Umar; he nabbed the last step on the rostrum on the Saturday and went one better on Sunday with P4. “Not a bad one,” he said afterwards. And he was right; it was an excellent way to kick off his graduation to Class 1-GT3.
“I backed off at the first turn after rolling start as the Toyota seemed to be slowing down a bit rapid and [I was] chasing Bobby at early stage but my engine power is obviously inferior. I’m quite satisfied with the race overall as I managed to improve and learned more on the behaviour of my car,” Khun Umar added. Indeed, he now has valuable cockpit time in his new Gallardo GT3 FL2 ahead of Bangsaen and with his regular race engine already on the way to Germany to be rebuilt he should have a full compliment of horses behind him in time for the street race finale next month.
Khun Kiki, after a careful start, was soon flying and making up places. However he was lucky to survive mid race contact with Khun Jack’s Lamborghini and was then forced to limp to the finishline. It was a disappointing scenario for the Porsche driver, he wasn’t able to show what he’s really capable of, but getting to the finishline meant his second trip to the podium of the weekend. Khun Jack, meanwhile, retired on lap 9. That was his second DNF in two days in what was his first outing in a GT3 specification Gallardo.
Super Car Class 2-GTM Sunday
Sunday’s second and final race of the weekend cooked up one of the best Super Car races in recent memory. If the tussles in Class 1-GT3 had been exciting, the drivers in Class 2-GTM were certainly out to overshadow the bigger cars.
At the green lights the two factory Toyotas used their power to sail into Turn 1 in first and second places while Khun Voravud tucked in behind them. Khun Aekarat and Khun Sarun came through the first corner next, side-by-side, followed by Khun Traitanit, Khun Kantasak, Khun Henk and Khun Thomas. Using the speed of the big V8 Holden to the maximum Khun Craig powered away from the start but was carrying too much speed, got onto the kerbs and spun round on the exit of Turn 1. He was able to carry on, but had lost valuable seconds.
The car to watch out for as the race started to unfold was the Audi and Khun Henk quickly despatched Khun Kantasak to move up into sixth at Turn 1 on the second lap as both drivers had got the jump on Khun Traitanit who dropped down to eighth and he had his teammate Khun Jakthong now tucked up behind.
With a title at stake Khun Voravud dug deep and he got the jump on Khun Nattapong, however at the start of lap 4 the Toyota driver tried to dive down the inside of the Ferrari into Turn 1 and there was major contact. Both cars were out on the spot. It was a move by Khun Nattapong that simply was far too ambitions and it resulted in the stewards dishing out the a one race suspension to the Toyota driver; he will now sit out the first race in Bangsaen. For Khun Voravud it was costly, he could only watch as his title rival Khun Nattavude streaked off into the distance in P1, a position that if the Toyota driver could maintain to the checkered flag would swing the title fight heavily in his direction.
That clash in fact counted for three cars as when Khun Craig came round he succumbed to damage from the debris left behind on the line, as he explained afterwards. “We got off to a good start and then in the first turn I got squeezed onto the big ripple strips, the stoppers, and lost grip so obviously the car spun around and then got going again and were catching a few people,” said the New Zealander.
“The car was very strong and I was very focused and we were on the back of them in no time and we started passing the backenders,’ he continued. “I could see the leaders in front so I wasn’t concerned at all and then coming round the Ferrari and the Toyota crashed in front of me at the end of the front straight and something fibre or something else punctured my left rear tyre and also something came up and broke a water pipe so we had to come in anyway. It’s a bit unfortunate really that we got caught up in some stuff on the track.”
Behind Khun Nattavude, following the departure of Khun Voravud and Khun Nattapong from P2 and P3, a four car scrap was developing for second place. Four German racecars in fact, the Porsches of Khun Aekarat, Khun Sarun and Khun Kantasak and the Audi of Khun Henk were all locked together. The battle raged on but the Audi eventually picked off the three Porsches and the Dutchman broke clear and set off to hunt down the race leader, Khun Nattavude, for the second day running.
Khun Henk had been the form driver the previous day and he carried that sheer pace through to Sunday’s race, the Audi looked fast and agile and its aero was working a real treat on the Buriram circuit. He was unstoppable and this time he made it cleanly through to P1. Agonisingly though as the race approached its final third distance he suddenly peeled off into the pits and, after a very brief reappearance on the track, for a second day running he would record a DNF. “After taking first place, after passing Nattavude, I got a problem with the gearshift so I did one lap after that, come in, reset the computer and go out again, two laps later it happened again and that was it,” Khun Henk reported afterward. He had the consolation though of posting the fastest lap of the race for the second day running. The day before he had been the only driver to get into the 1:40s, this time he smashed through the 1:39 barrier, banging in a stunning best lap in 1:39.771, on lap 9; that was more than 2 seconds quicker than the next driver.
Over the closing laps the three Porsches of Khun Aekarat, Khun Sarun and Khun Kantasak were locked together in what was turning into one of the most unforgettable battles of the Super Car era. Then, quite sensationally, that battle for P2 started to look like it was going to become one for P1 as Khun Nattavude began to drop his pace. The three Porsches, with Khun Sarun swarming over the back of Khun Aekarat (in a repeat of the recent Bira race – but reversed this time) and Khun Kantasak sitting a car length back and waiting to capitalise, reeled in the #39 Toyota, swallowed it up and then spat it out behind.
Khun Nattavude reported afterwards that his clutch had been slipping more and more and he eventually parked the Toyota up on the last lap as it finally gave up. In terms of the championship with Khun Voravud also retiring, the title battle will head to Bangsaen with just one point separating the two drivers.
Over the final few laps the three Porsches continued to fight nose to tail but after his heroics Khun Sarun had to settle for third as Khun Kantasak, reading the race superbly, darted through to nab P2. That’s the way it finished, the gap between Khun Aekarat and Khun Kantasak was just 0.397 seconds after 14 laps with Khun Sarun just 1 second behind.
As the TSS ‘show’ continues to develop so there was a new finishing procedure put in place with the racecars pulling up on the main straight, right in front of the podium and under the shadow of the main grandstand, where strict Parc Ferme conditions were imposed on the cars.
For Khun Aekarat it’s been a few years since he’s won a race. Highly consistent and with a lot pace and ability, he’s usually on the podium and always in the fight at the front. He’s a driver that can never be counted out. His was a richly deserved victory and as the sun set on Buriram and the trackside vista acquired a golden glow, he
was clearly emotional to have pulled off a win that he’d had to work incredibly hard for. “I’m very, very happy with this success,” he said. “This race is fantastic and very fun as everybody is very close, one, two, three, four, fifth position, all very close, since the first lap. It’s very fun and I’m very happy.”
Khun Kantasak picked up a well-deserved second place. In his first year in Super Car the 24-year-old hasn’t had a smooth run at all so far. With very little track time to get used to the unique characteristics of the rear engine Porsche, itself a huge step up in power for a driver who had gone no further than racing locally built front wheel driver Honda sedans before this season, a pre race test here had been a huge help and so the weekend had looked promising. Unfortunately, Khun Kantasak was out on the first lap of Race 1 so things didn’t look quite so good on Saturday evening. However this is clearly a driver who is going places in the future and most of the paddock was delighted to see him bag the runners up spot after 14 tough laps of racing.
And it hadn’t been smooth going for Khun Kantasak, as his race engineer Khun Don Chiewcharnvlichkij explained afterwards, the damage to the car sustained in Race 1 had been quite extensive and had required plenty of compromising during the overnight the patching up operation. In fact they had at one point considered scratching the entry. “The lower arm, joints, rack and pinion joint and Kevlar stuff were broken,” he said afterwards. “We aimed only to finish [Race 2] as the car was also lazy to turn in.”
The problems didn’t end there either as Khun Kantasak had to grapple with gearshifting problems all race. “[When the] rescue team towed the car [after the first race] it was still in gear and [it] happened to bend the selector fork and that led to the dog ring becoming worn because it wasn’t properly catching the fifth gear today, so the system has to double or triple retry itself to engage fifth gear,” Khun Don added. All in all an excellent result that should give the youngster a big confidence boost going into Bangsaen.
There was also delight for the third position that Khun Sarun grabbed, another popular driver who has amassed plenty of fans. New to Super Car this year, this long time drifting star has been quick from the off and, once he had ironed out the tendency he had to apply ‘drift techniques’ to his circuit racing style in Sepang during the season opener, he’s looked smooth and fast. Japanese superstar Khun Keita Sawa was in the paddock once again to coach Khun Sarun who was also running a new tyre brand this weekend, Hoosier.
“It was a very competitive race, I think it’s very good for the TV show,” Khun Sarun said afterwards. “I was in second position and I tried to put pressure on Khun [Aekarat] and he [held] the line very good and we try not to contact each other but we try to do everything very clean. I’m very happy with the result.” Two third places from the weekend were his best results to date in Super Car (building on the P4 he earned in the final race at Bira during the last round), which means he’s now made three consecutive trips to the Super Car podium.
Fourth went to Khun Traitanit, he was 14.362 seconds off the front at the end as he showed a very decent race pace. It was also his first trip to the podium since the opening race of the year in Sepang (where he was third in Race 1) and a great way to bounce back from his double DNF at Bira. Khun Jakthong made it two GT-Rs in the top six, but NSports-Yokohama-Project Mu Team Thailand still has an awful lot of work to do to get these dramatic cars to the front.
Splitting the Nissans was the Porsche of Khun Thomas, he passed Khun Jakthong after a mid race scrap to claim the final podium step. He also made it four Porsches on the podium. Aside from Khun Henk, Khun Nattapong, Khun Voravud and Khun Craig, the high attrition rate also saw Khun Visarut pitting on lap 13 not to reappear, while Khun Pete was again a non-starter.
And to the championship standings. It simply couldn’t be any closer. The top two in the standings both DNF’d in the second race, while in the first race Khun Nattavude chopped 10 points out of Khun Voravud’s 11 point lead coming into the event to reduce the deficit to just 1 point. But it didn’t stop there and thanks to his win on Sunday Khun Aekarat is right in the hunt, he’s only four points off the top. In the teams championship its the same story, Toyota Team Thailand and Singha A Motorsport AAS Kiwi Racing arrived neck and neck, in Race 1 the former team bagged a 1-2 finish to swing the pendulum in its direction while in Race 2 the latter outfit claimed a 1-2 finish to swing it straight back again.
The state-of-the-art new international circuit in Buriram has proved the perfect warm up to our season finale Bangsaen next month – and it’s certainly looking like it’s going to be one of the most exciting races in Thai motorsport history.
Source. Racing Spirit