Formula Masters China Series regular Matt Solomon couldn’t have started his career in sports cars with any less fanfare.. Joining dual Formula One world champion and AMG ambassador Mika Hakkinen for a tilt at the GT Asia Series at Zhuhai brought with it immense pressure, but from opening practice, the 17-year old from Hong Kong showed a maturity well beyond his years.
In qualifying he was actually quicker than Hakkinen, but by virtue of his immense experience in such conditions, Hakkinen was responsible for starting the car, and the Finn showed the star qualities that marked him as one of the very best, by storming from sixth to second by the first corner.
From there he pressured race leader Earl Bamber (CRAFT Racing Ford GT) until his lap 16 pit stop. The crack Erebus Motorsport team effected an almost perfect driver change, allowing Matt to rejoin in clean air.
Tasked with pushing hard to breach the gap ahead of the leader’s compulsory stop, Matt duly obliged, punching out a string of laps all within half a second of one another.
By the time Bamber hit the pits and handed over to car-owner Samson Chan, Matt had closed the gap significantly, and within a handful of laps he was on the Ford driver, diving up the inside at turn four.
Unsighted, Chan turned in, the two cars briefly making contact before Matt was through and back into his rhythm. From there it was all academic, the #36 AMG SLS crossing the line almost eight seconds clear of Chan, with reigning GT Asia champion Mok Weng Sun home in third, the veteran admitting post race that he’d have never caught Matt..
Crossing the line with the lights flashing, the GT rookie had made his mark, and the Erebus team and the assembled AMG guests were overjoyed.
“First of all, I want to thank AMG Customer Sport and Erebus Motorsport for putting this together for me, I know how much work the team put in to set up the whole thing,” Matt acknowledged.
“Mika putting the car into P2 at the start made my job a whole lot easier. The stop was really good, it all went smoothly and as I got out of the pit, there were no other cars around so I just put my head down and maximised the fresher tyres we had.
“I pushed quite hard and when I saw the Ford get out of the pit I just put my head down and charged. As I caught up to Samson I stayed behind him for a few laps, I saw there were yellow flags so the only real opportunity for me to overtake was either at turn four or down in turn ten but I got quite a good run going in to turn four. I went down on the inside and didn’t expect Samson to veer into the corner, and we touched, then he went a little wide, but that’s racing.
“It’s my first win in cars in my debut in GT Asia and I am extremely happy.”
Whilst clearly happy with the result, team-mate Mika Hakkinen admitted he was impressed by Matt’s drive through to challenge for, and take the win..
“Matthew did a fantastic job to come out and recover [track position], it was a fantastic job, and a fantastic first race in the SLS AMG.
“This is quite a short race, so you have to push all the time and take all opportunities to improve your position and maximise your lap time all the time, and we did just that.”
With 50-minutes ahead of them again tomorrow, and a front row start, the #36 Erebus team may be up for back-to-back victories, although this time it will be Matt to start the car, and Hakkinen to complete the job.. stay tuned!