Pasin Lathouras raced to a hugely impressive top ten finish in the first ever FIA GT World Cup, a spectacular new international event that brought the best factory teams and drivers together for an end of season extravaganza reserved for GT3 cars that played out last Sunday on the streets of Macau.
The 21-year-old Thai was the youngest driver on the grid and when he crossed the finishline at the end of the 18 lap race in tenth place, he was the only non professional driver amongst the top ten finishers, mixing it up on the tight, twisty and ultra-challenging street circuit with a raft of global superstar names.
In the blisteringly heat of a Macau November afternoon, that has also seen Pasin having to react to technical problems during the race, it was the perfect way to wrap up his most successful season yet, a year that includes winning the Pro-Am class in the 24 Hours of Spa and securing the Vice Champion position in International GT Open.
FIA GT World Cup
The new ‘FIA GT World Cup’ has replaced the popular ‘Macau GT Cup’ as a headline event of the world famous ‘Macau Grand Prix’ programme this year. The ‘World Cup’ concept is reserved for GT3 cars and brings together leading manufacturer teams and professional drivers from around the world for a spectacular event as the best of the best head off with each other.
The new format this year kicked off with two half hour long free practice sessions, last Thursday and Friday, with Qualifying, also 30-minutes long, taking place later on the Friday afternoon. The 12-lap ‘Qualification Race’ was held on the Saturday and the result of that race decided the grid for the FIA GT World Cup main race, which was 18-laps long and was contested on Sunday afternoon.
The premier status of the new ‘World Cup’ event had the added benefit of allowing drivers much more track time than the Macau GT Cup has enjoyed in recent years as the races for the ‘GT’ cars took over more prestigious slots in the programme. For Pasin, who is still learning the track, this was clearly an added benefit.
Qualification Race
After posting P15 in the qualifying session Pasin started the Qualification Race from the eighth row of the grid.
The youngster made a clean and quick getaway at the rolling start but after just four laps the Safety Car was deployed but by that point Pasin was up to P13. However with local driver and previous Macau Grand Prix winner, Andre Couto, this year driving a McLaren 650S, right behind him Pasin had to factor in extra pressure at the restart.
The Safety Car compromised the middle period of the race, which resumed on lap 8 and Pasin was again away cleanly and over the final four laps he continually pressurised the Audi R8 LMS Ultra of Marchy Lee in front of him, pushing him all the way to the checkered flag in fact and the gap at the line was just 0.180 seconds.
However as this was the Qualification Race ahead of the World Cup final race the next day the strategy for all the drivers was to get to the finishline safely and there were few heroic attempts made throughout the 12-lap race.
That was an excellent result as it moved the Thai driver up two further places on the grid for the FIA GT Cup World final race. Even better Pasin continued to improve his laptimes steadily and consistently through this latest track period and his fastest lap in 2:21.935 (155.23 km/h), set on the penultimate lap of the race, was his best yet around Macau and that put him right into the ballpark for fast race times. The signs were very promising for the main race.
World Cup Race
The ‘final’ played out in the searing heat of a November afternoon in Macau and with the factory-entered cars at the top end the anticipation was huge. Just before the GT cars lined up on the grid there was a massive 10-car pile up at Turn 1 during the preceding TCR International Series race, but when it came to the green lights in the FIA GT World Cup there was a clean getaway for everyone.
Pasin enjoyed some excellent opening laps as the running order ebbed and flowed and by the time the cars came round the second time he was up into P10 and right on the tail of the cars in front. However by that point the Thai was reporting understeer over the radio and also had gearshifting issues and as the race settled down the gaps started to open.
Just after half distance the Safety Car was deployed and that would settle the race as with just a couple of laps still remaining another car crashed while the pack was still under caution blocking the track and so the race was swiftly red flagged with the official result being classified at the end of lap 14.
That didn’t give Pasin the chance to try to push any further but with techncial issues on the #10 Ferrari 458 GT3 to manage he had locked into the top ten, a stunning result that certainly much more than beat the team’s objectives for the weekend. He was the only amateur driver in the top ten of the FIA GT World Cup and had held his own driving a privately entered car run by AF Corse in a field brimming with professionals and factory cars.
It was quite simply the perfect way to wrap up the season as he now considers his 2016 racing programme.
Pasin Lathouras: “It’s been a great way to end the year. To race here is really special, it’s just such an awesome track and such a tough challenge and this year with it being the new FIA World Cup race there has been even more added pressure. The team did a great job in setting up the car and I kept working to consistently improve my lap times with each session to get where I needed to be to be competitive in the race. I had a good start but then on the first lap I had some understeer and then car didn’t have the good balance we had in the qualification race. The race settled down but the Safety Car came out and that ended the race quite early before I had the chance to try to push more. I’m very happy with the result, to get in the top ten was more than we had targeted before as the guys on track are all top pros, and I would really like to say thanks to the team and all the people who have supported me all year.”