There are now less than three and a half months remaining until the 10th Anniversary edition of the Bangsaen Grand Prix gets underway and certainly the most significant factor during this milestone year will be the event’s entry onto the world stage, which will come in the wake of the conclusion of the push for FIA circuit homologation.

That process is ongoing and the latest step has been the completion of a full 3D survey of the street circuit and its surroundings right down to the last tiny details. A specialised joint Australian-Thai survey team has carried out the process.

The last round of Thailand Super Series (TSS), held in Buriram last month, saw a number of key supporting categories grabbing attention including TCR Thailand, which held its second ever pair of races, and ‘guest’ series Porsche Carrera Cup Asia, which joined our programme in the North East for a second consecutive year. Both championships added something a little bit different to the programme and both certainly generated plenty of interest. Full reports from both TCR Thailand and Porsche Carrera Cup Asia follow.

TCR Thailand’s entry list for that weekend included a new international driver joining the Krating Daeng Racing Team as they swelled up to a full compliment of three cars. The driver in question was Khun Alexander Mies and the German racer was a pretty logical choice as he already has a strong connection with the team. Meanwhile, factory support is also a core metric of TCR and recently SEAT Sport sent technicians over from Spain to assist the teams running the six SEAT Leon Cup Racers that have recently arrived in Thailand.

Surveying the scene in Bangsaen

There are less than four months remaining until the Bangsaen Grand Prix 2016 and the work towards achieving FIA Grade 3 homologation is relentlessly moving up the gears. The latest step in that process, a full 3D survey of the circuit, has just been completed.

The exhaustive analysis of the 3.7 km street track was conducted over 22 days by a joint Thai-Australian team that brought individual strengths to the project, not only surveying the road surfaces but all the surrounding infrastructure such as drainage channels, power cable poles, pavements and building frontages. The sweeping survey also included the new permanent paddock aprons and the event supporting infrastructure as well as additional land that might be incorporated in the future.

As the expansive survey wound to a conclusion the Racing Spirit Track Development Team, led by TSS Vice President Preeda Tantemsapya and Track Designer Khun Simon Gardini, were in Bangsaen to assess progress.

“We’ve had a survey taking place over the last three weeks,” explained Khun Simon, “We’re into the last couple of days now, gathering full 3D information of the entire track and its surrounds, including the event areas.

He said the Track Development Team required a great depth of detail as they close in on submitting the final plans, but as ever with the Bangsaen Street Circuit project they were also looking towards the long term future and that meant shooting over and above the requirements for achieving FIA Grade 3 homologation.

Khun Simon was satisfied with the detail that had been achieved. “The surveyors have picked up every tree, every power pole, the road surface, the edges, the gutters, the houses,” he said. “ So we have got the highest possible detail of the track and its geometry. The track in particular we need that information for our final design drawing that we will give to the FIA in a few weeks because it’s on the basis of it that the simulations are run so we can double check everything is safe and that the distances are exactly right.”

To get the best results from the survey they handpicked a team, he continued. “To undertake the survey we’ve looked for a combination of local and motorsport talent,” said Khun Simon. “So we have a great team here. The Australian surveyors, AAM Group, have undertaken previous motorsport surveys including in Singapore for the Formula 1 track and have teamed up with a local survey company with local expertise and the guys have been working very hard over the last three weeks to gather all the information and they will take that back and produce it in a drawing for the entire circuit.”

Khun Simon’s was also pleased that the survey had run smoothly and no difficulties have cropped up. “There’s been nothing unexpected, at this stage it’s primarily data gathering,” he says. “What we did after three days of gathering data was ask them to produce a drawing of just a small section so we could check that they were picking up everything as we need to pick up drains, and drain inverts and pits in the road, there are many small things that could be missed and that sample looked fantastic, it was exactly the sort of thing we need to achieve our targets.”

Leading the survey for AAM Group was Khun Timothy Connolly and he explained what was involved. “We are using robotic capabilities to get the most efficient data to the client as time constraints for this job are a factor,” said the Australian. “Originally we set up a survey control using static GPS and tied it in with digital leveling which basically means that the height and the contouring is to a very high standard, to just a couple of millimetres, so it helps with the design purposes as it makes everything a lot easier.”

Factory support

Alongside the influx of new turnkey racecars into Thailand Super Series has come a flurry of dedicated engineers that know these complex machines inside out, know how to manage them and extract their potential as well as bringing local engineers up to speed.

So this year, enter SEAT. It’s an unknown brand in Thailand and its cars aren’t seen on the roads here. As for the racetrack it’s very doubtful a SEAT branded car has ever taken to a Thai circuit before. So everything is starting at a zero sum base, except for this particular car’s ability to get its specific job done – to win races – is already well proven.

The win-proven SEAT in question is the Léon Cup Racer and it comes here to enter a brand new circuit-racing category that has only just arrived in Thailand this year, ‘TCR’. In fact ‘TCR Thailand’ is the first domestic series reserved for this new breed to spring up in Asia.

No less than six Léon Cup Racers touched down here just ahead of the start of the new season. So all in all a little bit of factory knowledge wouldn’t go amiss.

The SEAT factory sent two technicians over from its base in Spain to support the four teams that were running five of the six Léons at the season opener (the sixth example would in fact debut during the second round last month).

“We are giving support to the SEAT teams as it was the first time here for these cars in Thailand and we try to get the maximum from the cars and solve any questions or problems the customers might have,” explained Khun Jose Serrano, SEAT Sport Technical Assistant, in Buriram where he was a busy fixture up and down the pitlane with laptop in hand. “We will try to teach the teams how to do some things.”

He noted that they developed this car firstly for their European ‘one make’ series and then revised it to fit TCR specifications, so they know its capabilities well. “The car was developed over [the last] few years so we know many things we can show to the teams and we have been answering many questions about the car, the setup, the suspension [and] how to do the maintenance.”

The SEAT engineers were able to hook in and download the data from each of the cars in action and after analysis to provide feedback, pointers and direction. Double victory in the first races went to the Singha Motorsport Team Thailand-entered Léon and while Khun Carlo Van Dam stamped his mark, Khun Jose, while saying driver and team had done a great job, was also clear that there was still plenty more to come from their package. “The Singha team with Carlo Van Dam have done a good job on the setup of the car,” he said. “They have a good performance and maybe with the next races they can have more performance as they learn the car, there are many things they can improve.”

The Spanish engineer also reckoned that the SEAT Léon Cup Racer is a pretty versatile racecar and suits most tracks, including Buriram – the only specific metric they were having to factor in during the weekend was the temperatures and humidity, which were higher than in Europe where the car mostly races. “I think the car is good here,” noted Khun Jose. “But we know with this car that the cooling is closer to the limit.”

TCR Thailand Round 2 Buriram: Race 3 (Saturday)

Khun Narasak Ittritpong had missed the TCR Thailand season opener back in May as Vattana Motorsport’s J.A.S. Motorsport-built Honda Civic didn’t arrive until just afterwards leaving him sitting on the sidelines. However he was able to get acclimatised to the car for the first time when TCR Asia Series visited Thailand a month later and he was swiftly into the groove, taking a trip to the podium during the first race – his TCR debut – although mechanical problems sidelined him early in the second race.

Come TCR Thailand’s third race of the year – and Khun Narasak’s first – he was in utterly determined mood when the lights went green and nobody saw anything other than a fleeting glimpse of the back end of the ‘battleship grey’ liveried Civic as he relentlessly powered his way into the distance.

In fact by the end of the second lap Khun Narasak had pulled out over a full second on the next driver, Khun Alexander Mies, who was deputising in Krating Daeng’s third SEAT (see separate story), and that pace seemed to break the resolve of the chasing pack as the Vattana driver hauled that cushion out to 2.6 seconds by the end of the next lap.

Behind the front two the stars of May’s opening round, Khun Carlo Van Dam and Khun Jack Lemvard, were disputing third place as by the end of the third lap, the latter was applying pressure on the former but then the Vattana driver ran wide on the fourth lap and dropped a full second back. Khun Chen Jian Hong (Krating Daeng) was two seconds behind the squabbling pros and also leading the Amateur (AM) class before there was a further two seconds back to Khun Nattachak Hanjitkasem (TB MK IHere) who was second in AM.

Khun Narasak meanwhile continued to ease away and at the end of 4 laps he had a 3.5 seconds advantage while Khun Carlo, who was able to stop looking at his rearview mirror, was closing in on Khun Alexander. Khun Jack was now more than a second and a half off the Singha Motorsport car; running wide had proved costly.

By the end of 6 laps Khun Narasak had eased out to a 5.9 second lead but now Khun Carlo had closed right up on Khun Alexander and Khun Jack was almost back onto the Dutchman’s tail so it was shaping up nicely into a three car battle for second place. Into the seventh lap of the race Khun Jack locked onto Khun Carlo but both drivers were given warnings for exceeding track limits so they would have to take care not to pick up a penalty.

At the front Khun Narasak was still relentlessly powering away, and going into the start of lap 10 he was now 9.6 seconds ahead and as Khun Carlo and Khun Jack were now battling with each other that allowed Khun Alexander to ease slightly away; the German pulled ahead by just over a second which looked like it would be enough as the race headed into the closing stages.

Meanwhile the midfield order was starting to come alive and fourth to eight were covered by less than four seconds; Khun Chen, Khun Nattachak, Khun Paritat Bulbon (Sloth Racing SEAT) and Khun Grant Supaphong in the third Krating Daeng SEAT had been eyeing each other up for lap after lap but seemingly none of the quartet could get quite close enough to consider making a move.

At the end of the eleventh lap Khun Narasak was really cruising, his advantage was up to 10.4 seconds, Khun Alexander still had a full second’s cushion over Khun Carlo while Khun Jack had dropped a second back and it really looked like the podium places were pretty much settled as the cars came round to start the final lap. In fact as Khun Narasak led them over the line to start the last lap his advantage was up to 11.352 seconds; he had simply demolished the field after a superb drive.

But during the final dying moments the race sensationally turned on its head as Khun Alexander, Khun Carlo and Khun Jack closed right up through the last few turns and into the last corner it all got very out of shape as the Krating Daeng driver who had been suffering braking issues for much of the race and now found himself with a long pedal, he went wide and Khun Carlo came sniffing down the inside, the pair squabbling away as they ran down the final few hundred metres to the finishline.

Give Khun Carlo the tiniest chink of daylight and he will exploit it for all he’s worth, he had sensed the moment, elbowed his way through and got on the power more quickly as his rival struggled to correct his car, the Dutchman then muscled his way past Khun Alexander to the finishline. They went side by side over the line and as they crossed the timing beam the gap was just five hundreds of a second.

A sensational end to the race as Khun Carlo, the championship leader did his chances no harm at all by picking up the extra points on offer for second place. Khun Jack looked on from right behind them but couldn’t quite join the fun while nearly seven seconds back down the road Khun Chen led home Khun Nattachak, Khun Paritat and Khun Grant. The Taiwanese driver won the AM class, his third straight class win in three races this year, while Khun Nattachak was second in AM and Khun Grant third.

TCR Thailand Round 2 Buriram: Race 4 (Sunday)

The top five reverse grid saw Khun Chen on pole with Khun Jack lining up alongside. Row 2 comprised of Khun Alexander and Khun Carlo while the first race winner, Khun Narasak, started from the third row alongside Khun Paritat who finished sixth in the first race.

Khun Narasak made a slow getaway at the green lights as he suffered boost problems and dropped off the back of the pack while Khun Jack dived inside polesitter Khun Chen to lead out of Turn 1 with Khun Alexander trying to sweep round the outside, a strategy which he carried into Turn 3 and that cost him time, letting Khun Carlo dive up the inside and lock onto the back of Khun Jack. Khun Chen salvaged third as they started the run back up the hill with Khun Alexander after his excursion onto the runoff slotting back in fourth.

By the time the cars reached Turn 5 Khun Narasak had closed up the deficit and was back past the Honda of Khun Nattachak while through the essess Khun Alexander quickly deposed his Taiwanese teammate out of third place.

Over the line for the first time and the top two, Khun Jack and Khun Carlo, had broken five car lengths clear and were locked together while further back Khun Narasak was now back past Khun Grant and into sixth place.

Through the second lap Khun Carlo was trying everything to get past Khun Jack while as they came to the line to start the third lap Khun Narasak powered past Khun Chen and up to fourth; that meant both Vattana Motorsport entries were in the top four overall.

But that state of affairs wouldn’t last long as Khun Narasak started to drop back again, the intercooler piping had dislodged and that was costing him a lot of power, he lost a couple of the places had regained in the gasping Honda, while into Turn 3 there was contact between the Vattana driver and Khun Paritat who went onto the grass on the inside but managed to keep everything together before returning to the track safely albeit now he was right at the back of the pack.

Khun Alexander then picked up a puncture and retired from the race but barely had Khun Chen taken up his teammate’s third position than he ran very wide at Turn 8 and that allowed the quickly recovering Khun Narasak into third place. Khun Nattachak was driving well and he passed Khun Grant before homing in and then challenging Khun Chen for the AM class lead.

At the end of the lap though Khun Narasak suffered yet further from the lack of turbo power and out of the final turn he lost the places he had clawed back while a little further back Khun Paritat dived into the pits. A pretty eventful first three laps which marked one-third distance.

Into the fourth lap Khun Carlo finally got past Khun Jack as he lined himself up on the inside on the run up the hill to Turn 4 to nip through and claim a lead he would assuredly hold to the finish, the Dutchman eventually easing out to an 8 second advantage over Khun Jack.

The battle for third though was where the interest lay and it raged for lap after lap as Khun Nattachak mixed it up with the two Krating Daeng entries of Khun Chen and Khun Grant, all three taking turns at the front of this mini battle. In the end it was settled in favour of Khun Chen, albeit by just seven tenths of a second over Khun Nattachak while Khun Grant drifted off the back to finish almost 40 seconds away from the battle but was still able to claim the final PRO-AM podium position. Khun Chen and Khun Nattachak meanwhile bagged the top two positions in the AM class. Then came Khun Paritat who had returned to the track after his pitstop, a lap down, and finally Khun Narasak, who continued to circulate in the down on power Civic and eventually came home two laps adrift to pick up some championship points.

In the PRO-AM Drivers’ championship standings Khun Carlo continues to romp away at the top, he has 93 points now thanks to three wins and a runners up spot from the four races so far this year and that puts him 27 points clear of Khun Jack who has 66 points for his three runners up spots and a third place. Khun Grant is third in the PRO-AM classification with 53 points. In AM, Khun Chen has a perfect score of 100 points as he’s performed a clean sweep over the first half of the season with four wins out of four while Khun Nattachak is in second place with three runners up spots and a third place, he has 69 points.

In the Teams’ championship Krating Daeng has been boosted by its strength in numbers, finally running all three of its cars in Buriram, and that paid off handsomely as they move up to 105 points. Vattana Motorsport was also boosted by the arrival of its second car on the entry list and climbs to 94 points while, thanks to Khun Carlo’s superb solo efforts, Singha Motorsport Team Thailand is next up on 93 points – and that’s just a solitary point away from second place.

Last word to the Saturday race winner, he was clearly delighted with his debut in TCR Thailand. “It was a great weekend for us,” said Khun Narasak afterwards. “We worked so hard [but had] less time to set up for second time race. Now we know the car and we [will] keep trying to get the podium for next [race]. Thank you Vattana Motorsport and WestCoast racing.”

Alex Mies drafted into Krating Daeng lineup

Krating Daeng has made quite a commitment to TCR Thailand this year acquiring three SEAT Léon Cup Racers with two destined for full season challenges in the hands of Khun Chen Jian Hong (AM) and Khun Grant Supaphong (PRO-AM).

The team’s third car stood idle at the season opener back in May – but that wasn’t to remain the case when TCR Thailand resumed last month at Buriram for its second double header of the year. The car was in the hands of German driver Khun Alexander Mies who made something of a surprise entry into the weekend’s proceedings.

Although it wasn’t really a great surprise to see his name cropping up on the entry list as Team Manger Khun ‘Kiki’ Sak Nana was looking for a ‘guest’ driver to slot in the idle third car and take the fight to the star names in TCR Thailand, which include Khun Carlo Van Dam, Khun Jack Lemvard and Khun Narasak Ittritpong.

“I met Kiki three or four years ago in Germany at the Nordschleife where we were teammates and we’ve stayed in contact ever since,” Khun Alexander explained in the Krating Daeng garage, saying that their first experience together would in fact soon lead to another opportunity. “Last year through the contact with Kiki I went to the Krating Daeng Racing Team so they support me in Germany and we’re doing quite good so far in Germany, so he asked me to race this TCR car overhere in Thailand.”

However it wasn’t quite as straightforward as strapping himself into the car and hitting the track, there was plenty for Khun Alexander to learn. “It’s more or less my first time in a front wheel drive car,” he said. “I never have been in a TCR front wheel drive car, I’m just used to BMWs so it’s new experience.”

Even so he was quickly into the groove and the fastest of the trio of Krating Daeng cars. “It’s nice to drive, you can feel it’s a racecar, it’s responsive directly but of course a front wheel drive car is very different to drive compared to a rear wheel drive car but I’m getting used to it,” he said.

In the first race he made a blistering start and ran a very comfortable second until brake issues dropped him to third at the end – but it still meant an impressive trip to the podium on his first race in Thailand. “The start was very good and I made up positions to P2 but after two or three laps my brakes started overheating so I had to drop back and get used to it,” he said. “On the last lap I had a really soft brake pedal.”

He retired early in the second race after suffering a deflated tyre but all in all it was a very strong debut weekend for Khun Alexander and we should see him back in the car again this year. Krating Daeng plan to run the German as a ‘wildcard’ entry in the TCR International Series races in Buriram later this month and he will be back in the car for the TCR Thailand season closer at the Bangsaen Grand Prix meeting in November.

Porsche Carrera Cup Asia, Buriram: Race 1, Saturday

The formbook took a big shaking at Buriram during the first of the two races for the Porsche Carrera Cup (PCCA) runners as the Porsche China Junior Team’s Andrew Tang took his second trip to the podium of the year – but more significantly his first win, the 22-year-old reaffirming the championship’s ability to let young drivers shine.

The race came alive right from the start as a spin by Team Porsche Holding’s Khun Martin Ragginger at Turn 1 saw the field swerving around him and the big loser was the championship leader and pole sitter Khun Maxime Jousse who sustained damage and retired. The Frenchman, the winner of four of the first five races of the year, would be picking up no more points that day and that gave his rivals plenty of hope.

Early advantage after the mêlée went to Fun88 Team Sunfonda’s Khun Zhang Da Sheng, who was celebrating his 24th birthday, he’d started second but now took the race lead.

Also of note was Khun Scott Hargrove of OpenRoad Racing, deputising for usual driver Khun Francis Tjia, who immediately pressurised the leader. He would eventually overshoot a corner and drop back to fifth and that allowed Khun Andrew to move into second place and the reel in the leader, Khun Zhang, before passing him at two-thirds distance.

Khun Scott meanwhile battled his way back up the order, also passing Khun Zhang to move into second, but he was unable to close down the gap to the leader. Khun Andrew therefore held on for his first win, Khun Scott finished second while Khun Zhang completed the podium positions.

Also of note was the performance of Khun Will Bamber who is a regular in the TSS paddock as the driver coach to Painkiller Racing’s hotshot gentlemen duo, Khun Paul Kanjanapas and Khun Naputt Assakul. The New Zealander, younger brother of Le Mans 24 Hours winner Khun Earl Bamber, was deputising in the second LKM entry and he finished an excellent sixth overall, shadowing championship hopeful Khun Nico Menzel all the way to the line. However, tasked with looking after the Porsche, Khun Will had to play it very safe.

In Class B there was another win, his fourth of the season, for Khun Yuan Bo, the Absolute Racing driver leading the full race. There was though a great performance by Thailand’s Khun Vutthikorn Inthraphuvasak who took second place.

Also of note was the performance of Khun Shaun Varney who was driving in Buriram for B-Quik Racing. The Thai team didn’t have its Super Car GT Porsche ready for Khun Shaun and so entered him in PCCA, B-Quik’s first ever appearance in the series. Khun Shaun was hit by a 10-place grid penalty but made light work of his lowly starting position to fight his way up to second in Class B before clutch failure ended the New Zealander’s race.

The other two Thai drivers in the race had a good afternoon in the North East, Khun Suttiluck Buncharoen finished seventh in Class B while Khun Sontaya Kunplome was three places further back.

Porsche Carrera Cup Asia, Buriram: Race 2, Sunday

The second race again saw everything becoming very hectic at the first corner and this time it was stand in driver and previous day runner up, Khun Scott, who capitalised to move into the race lead while pole sitter Khun Maxime again had a rough start to drop down to fifth place.

Khun Martin slotted into second place with third place being taken up by Khun Zhang and Khun Nico, the pair soon swapping places though. Khun Andrew, the previous day’s race winner, spun out of fifth as he tried to advance, dropping down to tenth place where he would languish for the remainder of the race.

Khun Maxime showed why he is the championship leader and was determined to salvage a good result from a disappointing weekend thus far, the Frenchman deposing Khun Nico from third place on the penultimate lap as the top four runners continued to race very closely together. That allowed Khun Maxime to retain his place at the top of the points’ classification departing from Buriram, albeit by just two points as Khun Nico has now closed his advantage right down.

In Class B the wily Khun Vutthikorn took full advantage of the hectic start to move into the lead but Khun Yuan soon retook the advantage and it would be the same finish as the previous day with the Thai driver taking an excellent runners up spot. Also in Class B Khun Sontaya claimed his second top ten finish of the weekend, this time finishing in ninth place, while Khun Suttiluck and Khun Shaun retired from the race, but both greatly impressed before they dropped out.