Hong Kong-based Matt Solomon’s incredible sportscar debut continued at Zhuhai International Circuit during the second race (round #10) of the GT Asia Series where he once again joined dual Formula One world champion Mika Hakkinen in the Erebus Motorsport SLS AMG.

In what Matt regarded as a surreal experience, he overcame the distractions and pressures of the high profile program undertaken by AMG China to not just meet expectation, but blow them completely out of the water.

A maiden victory in race one from a third row start was the dream debut everybody was hoping for. Matt to his credit not only carried on the good work established by Hakkinen in the opening stint of the race, but he used all his newly found race skills from less than 12 months in an open-wheel race car to forge his way to the front and take victory in the closing stages of the race.

Off the front row of the grid in race two alongside German team-mate Lance David Arnold in the second of the Erebus Motorsport Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG ‘gull-wings’, Matt started strongly and actually led the opening lap before his recovering team-mate on fresher rubber reclaimed the lead prior to the pit-stops.

Sadly the dream of back-to-back victories was to elude the Solomon/Hakkinen combination, but they certainly never gave up and finished with a strong podium challenge.

Whilst the race weekend was over, for Matt the good news just kept coming. A chance to spend some time with Hakkinen’s former McLaren team-mate David Coulthard was first up during a promotion with sponsor Sideways Driving Club, and then the announcement that he had been chosen to represent the Asia-Pacific region in the 2013/14 FIA Young Driver Excellence Academy.

The FIA supported initiative will produce one guaranteed winner from each of five global regions to go forward to the 2013/14 Young Driver Excellence Academy in Europe. A further three drivers will be selected using a wildcard system, making a total of eight participants in the final Academy group.
Over three days the drivers will undergo exercises designed to evaluate fitness, driving performance, media techniques, teamwork and psychology. The winner will receive a place on the Academy’s fully-funded training programme, which aims to help drivers develop their motor sport careers, whilst increasing safety skills and actively promoting the principles of safety, fairness and responsibility on and off the track.

For Matt, this invitation was further clarification of the improvements he has continued to make since graduating from karts less than 12 months ago, and it closed off what was a fantastic week that began with his sportscar debut with Mercedes.

“It was a fantastic experience working with Erebus Motorsport and AMG Customer Sports, I learnt a lot from the weekend,” Matt explained. “It was amazing having double-world champion Mika Hakkinen as a team-mate. I watched him growing up, so it was quite surreal actually driving with him let alone winning a race with him in what was a quite historical weekend.

“A lot of effort went into the Zhuhai event from the teams part, and also from my part because I wanted to be ready, as much as it was my first GT race. It wasn’t the easiest thing to adapt to, especially being such a big car compared to the Formula Masters China Tatuus I’m used to, but I think the transition from single-seaters to GT was quite good, so it really wasn’t a problem.

“Throughout testing [practice] we showed good pace and good improvements. In qualifying Mika did a good job to qualify in sixth, and I managed to qualify on the front row in the second session next to Lance which was pretty cool.

“Race one was amazing. Mika did an amazing job getting away at the start to be second and comfortably holding Lance. The team conducted a really good pit stop and got me out in a position to challenge Samson [Chan] for the lead and take the win.

“Race two was a bit of a different story. We started off side-by-side with Lance on the front row. I got a great start, but unfortunately Lance got tagged by the Aston on the exit of turn one and ran a bit wide and I managed to get the jump on both of them to take the lead.

“Lance though had the benefit of newer tyres [courtesy of his race one DNF] and quickly caught up to me, so I decided to let him past. There was no point risking anything, so I let him by and followed him. I pushed really hard to make sure I had a good gap over Mok [Weng Sun] in the McLaren behind me.

“From there I just concentrated on maintaining the gap and ensuring the pit stop was good as we had an extra 15-seconds added to our 75-second pit stop by virtue of winning race one, whilst the McLaren’s stop was about ten seconds less.

“Unfortunately they managed to get ahead of us during the stop, but Mika showed his class by closing the gap almost immediately.

“Unfortunately for Lance he rolled to a stop on the last lap whilst holding a big lead because of a fuel pressure issue. I don’t think Mika realised that Lance had stopped, so he made a move on the McLaren for what he thought was the final podium position. Unfortunately the move didn’t stick and he ran a little bit wide on the exit and we ended up finishing fourth.

“It wasn’t exactly what we wanted given that we’d had such a strong performance over the weekend but nonetheless I think it was an extremely amazing weekend. Working with the team was fantastic, the Erebus boys were amazing – they made me feel at home, and really made me feel like a part of the team.

“I really have to thank AMG Customers Sports and Erebus Motorsport for putting the whole weekend together, and I think we’ve shown to China, to Asia and to the world that we’re here [AMG], and here to stay, and hopefully AMG can grow in China.

“From my perspective I am open to doing more GT races, however I’m still focusing on doing the best job I can in the remaining two Formula Masters China Series races in Shanghai and Macau. Ultimately my goal is still to race in single-seaters and make it to Formula 1.

“As far as the weekend’s result – I don’t think it’s hit me yet – this whole weekend, getting my first ever win in cars, it’s kinda surreal, such an amazing weekend. I’m very happy..

“Working with an extremely professional team, and two extremely professional team-mates has made me better as a driver, and I’ve realised what it takes to be at the top, and I’ve sort of had a glimpse of that, but I know that I’ve got a long way to go still. So I’ll just keep my feet on the ground and work even harder now to achieve my goals.

“As for the FIA Young Driver Excellence Academy – it’s an honor to be selected for the shootout for 2013. Let’s see how it goes, I’ll certainly do my best to make Hong Kong proud!”

After such an incredible week, Matt’s focus now returns to the final two races of the Formula Masters China Series, with the final championship round at Shanghai (China) on 25-27 October, and the Macau Invitational race on 9-10 November.