The countdown to the penultimate event of Thailand Super Series (TSS) 2015 is well underway, by this time next week the teams will be pitched up at Bira Circuit and qualifying will be just about to get into full swing. But looking further ahead and right in the middle of the two and a half month gap between the visit to Pattaya next week and the season closer on the streets of Bangsaen an exciting opportunity for the Super Car teams has opened up thanks to an invitation to compete in GT Asia Series, the biggest international sportscar championship on the continent.
Motorsport Asia, promoter of GT Asia Series and a Technical Partner of Thailand Super Series, is throwing out an invitation to the teams and drivers in both Super Car Class 1-GT3 and Super Car Class 2-GTM to join the penultimate round of their season, which will take GT Asia Series to Buriram for the first ever time. There is expected to be plenty of interest from our teams and this unrivalled opportunity for our top stars to take on the best in Asia on home turf.
Strength in depth is the key to the success of the ‘New Era’ of Thai motorsport, and two of the most competitive and close fought supporting categories are also the first two rungs on the ladder, Super Production and Super Eco.
Two drivers enjoying successful seasons and looking to come on even stronger over the second half of the year are Khun Tony Percy, who has switched across to Super Production this season, and Khun Jakraphan Davee, who is enjoying his first racing season in TSS, in Super Eco. Both have made several trips to the podium during the opening two events in Buriram – so expect them to again be targeting podiums next week at Bira. We catch up with both.
Meanwhile, in the final race report from the last round of the series in Buriram, Super Eco, the narrative at the front was about Khun Suphong Khamtonwong who bagged two victories from the two races. But he didn’t have it easy on his way to that double triumph and there was plenty of close fought action all the way through the bumper field.
Finally, we already have one former Formula 1 driver in our midst, as Khun Tomáš Enge has become a regular face in the Reiter Vattana Motorsport garage, first undertaking testing duties and then racing in Super Car Class 1-GT3. Now a second ex-grand prix name is set to arrive in the TSS paddock as next week Khun Alex Yoong will arrive at Bira Circuit to assist B-Quik Racing with its pre-race preparations.
GT ASIA OPENS ITS DOORS TO TSS
Asia’s most prestigious international sportscar championship, GT Asia Series, will be heading to Thailand for the first time ever, on October 23-25, for its final rounds of the year. It promises to be a high profile weekend for motorsport here as not only with there be a grid full of cutting edge racecars and top pro drivers, but the event will also include rounds of the TCR International and Asia Series on the programme, the brand new concept that has quite simply electrified touring car racing worldwide and is set to be launched in Thailand next year.
However while TCR, in Thai terms, is for the future, GT Asia Series has a very direct relevance to the teams and drivers presently competing in Super Car Class 1-GT3 and Class 2-GTM. Both of these categories are virtually directly replicated in GT Asia Series and while the pan-Asian championship is best known for its big mix of cutting edge FIA GT3 homologated cars, it also has a category reserved for ‘Cup’, ‘Challenge’ and ‘Trofeo’ level machines that is an almost perfect fit with our own Super Car Class 2-GTM.
Motorsport Asia, promoter of GT Asia series, already has a close working relationship with Racing Spirit Co. Ltd., promoter of Thailand Super Series and that tie up will seamlessly extend to the visit by GT Asia Series. Motorsport Asia will thus offer an unrivaled opportunity for the drivers, teams and racing machines in Super Car to join a world-class standard field on a world-class standard racetrack without the costs usually associated with traveling abroad eliminating the need to move, racecars, equipment and personnel cross border.
“We’ve made a very special offer in terms of entry fee and we really want to see as many Thai participants as possible to come and join us as we’re interested through our association with TSS to help to develop the sport here in Thailand,” explains Khun David Sonenscher, Chief Executive Officer of Motorsport Asia. “We also want to give them an opportunity to match themselves against true international competition, so we’re excited to have them join the event and we really want to welcome as many as possible.”
Integration should be a relatively smooth affair. While GT Asia Series’ top class is a straight fit for our GT3 cars as both series adhere to FIA homologation, the second tier of cars is also a very close fit, especially so as our Super Car Class 2-GTM category uses a group of metrics to set individual car performance that’s closely based on Motorsport Asia’s own regulations where applicable. This covers almost all the cars in Class 2-GTM where directly applicable except for a few cars, such as the Holden Commodore VE that is not classified as a Grand Touring car under the GT Asia Regulations.
The class names between the two series need clarification also. GT Asia Series uses ‘GTM’ to categorise its second tier, reserved for slightly older GT3 cars as well as other more heavily modified cars running in its championship, while using ‘GTC’ to designate the level of one make style sportscars.
Khun David explains. “The first category we have is GT3 which is for FIA GT3 cars, that’s the one everyone is familiar with from seeing GT Asia,” he says. “Then the second category is GTM, which is for slightly older model GT3 cars and modified cars such as the majority that are un in TSS Class 2, and then we have a third category, which we call GTC and that is for the Carrera Cup, Ferrari Challenge, Lamborghini Super Trofeo and Audi Cup cars and some are with very minor modification so the teams just have declare to us what they’ve modified on the car and then we will classify them and put them in there with a Balance of Performance.”
The calendar timing is also ideal for our teams as GT Asia Series’ trip to Buriram falls midway between the upcoming round of TSS at Bira Circuit (11-13 Sep) and the final round of the year, the Bangsaen Thailand Speed Festival (24-29 Nov). In fact there will be a full six weeks between TSS at Bira and GT Asia in Buriram for any required preparations to be made and then a further five weeks afterwards before the visit to Bangsaen is due.
TSS BURIRAM: SUPER ECO RACE REPORT
Khun Suphong Khamtonwong bagged two very emphatic victories in Buriram that elevate him into the lead of the championship standings at the halfway point in the season.
He started from pole in the first race and wasn’t headed to the checkered flag as he set about racking up the first of two maximum scores from the weekend.
Khun Suphong was helped as it went off behind him in dramatic fashion. Khun Nuttapon Kaewkanjanasat, who started from the outside of the front row came under immediate pressure from Khun Jakraphan Davee and Khun Kmik Karnasuta who had started from Row 2. That battle culminated in the three cars being locked together side-by-side into Turn 4 and as they exited the high speed corner, Khun Nuttapon on the outside spin, came across, hit the barriers on the inside with his right hand front corner before recovering and coming back onto the track with badly damaged car, he limped towards Turn 5. However he clipped the back end of the #2 Mitsubishi Mirage of Khun Ekasit Namsaengpa and that tipped the yellow car into a roll, the Mirage ending up on its roof.
When racing resumed Khun Suphong pulled out a few lengths and behind him there was a superb battle for P2 as championship leader Khun Konpichit moved through the tussle between Khun Jakraphan and Khun Kmik to grab the runners up spot and start to edge away. Behind him Khun Jakraphan and Khun Kmik battled hard before P3 was decided in the favour of the former although Khun Kmik tried everything he could to wrest back the spot and was less than a tenth of a second adrift at the checkered flag.
In front of that battle of the race Khun Suphong cruised to a pretty comfortable 3.933-second win while Khun Konpichit claimed P2 having eased three seconds away from the tussle behind him. The final podium step went to Khun Chayapon Yotha who came out on top of a massed battle for position in the lower half of the top ten.
Khun Suphong made it two out of two for the weekend in the second race while Khun Kmik got back to his scintillating form, the youngster racing home as the runner up, 3.4-seconds back. Third went to Khun Jakraphan, his second third place of the weekend and his third on the trot, while fourth went to the improving Khun Sittron Phromsombat. The final podium step went to Khun Paveen Dangsa-nga who led home Krating Daeng teammate Khun Konpichit.
Two victories on the return visit to Buriram gives Khun Suphong three out of four wins for the year so far and with another solitary point added for P10 in the other race that moves him up to 61 points in the standings and into the championship lead.
Erstwhile classification leader Khun Konpichit collected points for a second and sixth place to move up to 56 points; he’s lost the top spot on the classification but is just 5 points adrift of Khun Suphong at the halfway point in the season. With Khun Suphong set to miss the upcoming Bira round that will give Khun Konpichit a great opportunity to bounce back into the championship lead when the Super Eco runners next take to the track. The top five in the standings is completed by Khun Jakraphan (36), Khun Paveen (27) and Khun Naruchit (26), the latter still recovering after illness and an upgrade to the Team Donut Brio’s engine tuning and ECU that hadn’t quite harmonised in time for the weekend. Chasing hard on their heels are promising youngster Khun Kmik (25) and the first of the two B-Quik Racing drivers’, Khun Attapot Sriprom (22).
‘GT ACADEMY’ STAR PLAYER JOINS THE ‘ECO’ RANKS
A new name in the paddock this year is Khun Jakraphan Davee; he’s joined Super Eco driving a Honda Brio Amaze. However, while he’s starting to work his way up the racing ladder, Khun Jakraphan has a track on his CV that the majority of drivers here don’t have on theirs, that’s Silverstone Circuit, one of the world’s most famous and historic grand prix venues.
And his ‘road’ to Silverstone was also a slightly unusual one too – that’s because he was one of the five finalists last year in the Thai division of the ‘Nissan GT Academy’.
The Nissan GT Academy is a driver discovery and development programme, which is a collaboration between the carmaker and the popular ‘Grand Turismo’ computer game. The ubiquitous simulators have been seen around Thailand at event such as the Bangkok Motor Show where thousands of hopefuls have tried to set a laptime that would see them shortlisted for the finals.
The first stage consisted of an online qualification process and that sent the winners to national finals where they were put through their paces as drivers with not just skill but fitness and other metrics being measured before the top entrants from across Europe, North America, Asia and other international regions were sent to a ‘Race Camp’ at Silverstone.
For Khun Jakraphan being one of the Nissan GT Academy finalists was a good chance to progress his career upwards. “I first started racing around four years ago, starting from club race events,” he said. “In 2014 I have a good chance in the Nissan GT Academy event in Thailand and I’m one in five representatives from Thailand to go to Silverstone circuit for [the] international race camp reality event.”
Last year he also drove the Brio amaze in club racing events with good results and that, together with the additional training from the Nissan GT Academy, set him up well to join Super Eco. And it seems to be paying off too, Khun Jakraphan has nailed down three third place finishes from the first four races of the year – already he’s established himself as one of the front-runners in the highly competitive arena of Super Eco.
ONWARDS AND UPWARDS FOR TONY PERCY
There has been a bit of a shuffle this year with a handful of drivers swapping between Super Production and Super 1500 two categories for similar cubic capacity cars, albeit to different technical regulations. One of those to jump in the direction of ‘production’ cars is actually a returnee – sort of. Khun Tony Percy is joining bustling category after most recently running in Super 1500 in a Toyota Vios. Before that he competed in Super 2000 from 2008-2013. And before that, in 2007, he ran a season in production cars. That was actually his rookie ‘tin top’ year and came after a long and very successful stint in Thai karting.
For this year though Khun Tony has been hamstrung by having to prepare a new car, his – usual – lack of budget and as he’s working half the way round the world this year, in Tbilisi, he’s just coming back for race weekends which is leaving no time for him to prepare thoroughly or test the new car while he’s also been using an underpowered engine during the opening rounds.
Despite all that’s he’s made a pretty good showing and he’s confident that the all round package isn’t too far away now. “As you know I have been developing the [Honda] Jazz over the last couple of races and it’s almost there,” Khun Tony says.
“To date I have been running with around 12 hp less than the front runners but keen to complete the braking and suspension set ups before completing what I hope to be the last piece in the jigsaw when we install the rebuilt engine, that I hope will provide the missing horsepower,” he continues. “The car will go to the dyno later this week and I hope it puts a smile on my face ready for Bira, though horsepower isn’t so much of a factor as it has been at Buriram for the past two rounds.”
So a quick recap. Four races undertaken this year and he’s had a pretty consistent run, with class points bagged in all four races. In the first race of the year, held back in May in Buriram, Khun Tony was seventh overall (4 overall pts) and fourth in Class B (10 class pts) to kick the year off with a trip to the podium. Meanwhile in the second race of the weekend he was fifth overall (8 pts) and again finished fourth in class (10 points) and that gave him a double trip onto the podium, and in fact that added up to three out of a possible four for the weekend.
The return trip to the North East at the end of July was less rewarding though as he was caught in an incident while running well placed in the first race. Khun Tony recovered the Jazz but would finish only twelfth overall which gave him no overall points; however getting the damaged car to the line paid off well in class terms as he nabbed seventh place in Class B, picking up a useful 4 points. In the other race of the weekend, compromised by having to start down the grid thanks to the previous day’s ill luck, he however worked his way up to ninth place overall, to collect 2 points, and that added up to sixth in Class B, and a handy 6 points.
“To be honest Rounds 3 and 4 were a disappointment really brought about by being taken off when running in sixth overall [and] having qualified eighth overall, I know I could have climbed to fifth overall as a minimum as I was closing in on that place quite easily,” Khun Tony said. “Finishing so low down in Race 3 obviously impacted upon Race 4, but that just motor racing, one minute on a high the next down the slippery snake and on a downer.
“I think, or should I say hope, Bira will give a true reflection of where we are as up until now its been a combination of getting the car to where I need it and a bit of bad luck,” he continued. “By the time Bangsaen comes around I hope to be able to end the season on a high.”
Khun Tony also points out that his application is being severely compromised by the fact that business commitments keeping him away from Thailand for most of the year. “The problem I have is that I can’t test anything due to working overseas,” he explains.
“All the testing and changes that I make have to be done and tried on race weekends, so it takes basically an age to get the car to what I like to drive, each race circuit is obviously different set up, camber, alignment, suspension settings, gearing etc., etc., and I am still finding my feet with the Jazz,” he adds. Still, it’s a promising start to the year; the ingredients are clearly there, so certainly expect to see Khun Tony on the Class B podium at Bira Circuit next week if he avoids any issues.
EXTRA HANDS FOR B-QUIK RACING
We already have one former Formula 1 driver in our midst, as Khun Tomáš Enge has become a regular face in the Reiter Vattana Motorsport garage, first undertaking testing duties and then racing in Super Car Class 1-GT3. Now a second ex-grand prix name is set to arrive in the TSS paddock as next week Khun Alex Yoong will assist B-Quik Racing with its pre-race preparations.
Khun Alex in fact became the first South East Asian driver to join F1 since Prince Bira, when he debuted at Monza for the Minardi team during the Italian Grand Prix in 2001. After a late season programme with the little Italian team he again drove for them through most of the following year before going on to pursue his career in international racing series including Champ Car, A1 Grand Prix, GP3 Asia Series and Porsche Carrera Cup.
This year the Malaysian driver is competing as a factory-supported driver in Audi’s pan-Asia ‘R8 Cup’. B-Quik Racing is taking part in the ‘R8 Cup’ this year with Daniel Bilski, who is also racing the team’s Porsche 997 GT3 Cup in Super Car Class 2-GTM. With two Audis in action, in TSS and the Audi Cup, that positions B-Quik Racing as part of the brand’s customer programme, giving the team access to factory support and that’s added up to bring Khun Alex into the mix.
Khun Alex will join B-Quik Racing in the paddock at Bira Circuit next Wednesday and Thursday, he will test the car on track with a particular focus on suspension setup of the #26 Audi R8 LMS Cup and coaching Henk J. Kiks, the car’s driver.
“Having Alex with us for a few days is going to be very useful, his knowledge of the R8 is second to none and so for sure he’s going to provide some excellent benchmarks,” said Khun Henk. “I also want to thank Audi for arranging this for us. Now we are going to have to work hard to build on his input, hook it all together, quickly find the right direction and get to the checkered flag well placed.”