Last year’s champions are back in fighting form at Inje, with David Cheng and Ho-Pin Tung winning the first race of the 2014 Asian Le Mans Series. Driving the #1 Morgan-Judd LM P2, the car developed by Onroak Automotive, racing with Total Lubricants China and Tyre Plus, the Chinese duo proved to be no match for the rest of the field in South Korea.
Ho-Pin Tung qualified on pole with a time of 1:23.889, their best time of the weekend so far and also a lap record for the track! His time was 0.198 quicker than their rival in LM P2, the #27 Eurasia Motorsport Oreca-Nissan LM P2. Having gone fastest in all four pre-race sessions, the trophy at the end of the three hour race was looking very promising.
With an air temperature of 34° and the track temperature at 50°, it wasn’t going to be the easiest of races and the rivalry in LM P2 promised to be strong.
At the start of the race, the #27 Oreca-Nissan with the very experienced driver Richard Bradley, who at the moment is also competing in the FIA WEC with the team KCMG, pipped David Cheng to take an early lead. David Cheng didn’t back down though, and kept up a strong chase for the first hour. Bradley’s laps were about a second quicker on track than Cheng’s. After an hour, the #1 pitted for the first time to refuel, with David Cheng staying in, and rejoining the race with a 25 second gap to Korean driver Tacksung Kim in the #27. Kim went slower than Bradley, allowing David the chance to catch up. Twenty minutes later, David Cheng took the lead!
After an hour and a half of excellent driving, David handed the wheel over to Ho-Pin Tung. Due to the pit-stop, they lost their lead for a short while, but Ho-Pin managed to reclaim it less than ten minutes later. Nearing the two hour mark, the #1 OAK Racing Team Total car led by a lap.
With 30 minutes left, Ho-Pin pitted for the final time to refuel, and was leading by an impressive five laps when he rejoined the race, delivering very consistent lap times of around 1.26. As the end neared, the Eurasia Motorsport car spun off because of oil on the track and ended up in the gravel, leaving OAK Racing Team Total the last LM P2 car in the race. Ho-Pin kept on going and took the chequered flag, claiming their first win at the first race of the season!
Ho-Pin Tung: “I had a great race. David did a good job; before we came in, we were already leading the race. For me the main target was to focus on the pace that Richard Bradley was running in the Eurasia car, since we were so close in qualifying, but in the race, I think we were able to run a massively faster pace than they were, constantly a second or two faster than them. I was very steady, even saved on the tyres all the way to the end. It’s a great result for the team. It’s a great way to start this new season of the Asian Le Mans Series. I’m very happy, the team did a great job and it was a flawless race“.
David Cheng: “We had a really good race here today here in Inje. Ho-Pin did a great job qualifying on pole yesterday. Unfortunately at the start, Richard Bradley in the #27 got a really good jump on the start and timed it just perfectly. Richard was very aggressive and for us, we wanted to be on a conservative strategy, so he raced by. It was quite a physical race actually; today was the hottest day of this whole week, and with it, I was planning to do a double stint, so all the training we did before le Mans really paid off, and physically, I was just fine coming out of the car. We were really able to conserve our Michelin tyres, and after our Total fuel stop, we were able to go out and start wheeling the leader back in“.
Next race: 3 Hours of Fuji on the 31st of August