The countdown to the new season of Thailand Super Series (TSS) got into gear last week as the ‘Drivers & Team Managers Meeting 2016’ was held at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club to outline the improvements being made this year to the regulations. A productive evening, held in the Club’s expansive Henri Dunant Hall, slots into place further evolutions as the ‘New Era’ of Thai motorsport starts to head towards ‘Season Four’.

Meanwhile, Krating Daeng Racing Team really rocketed into circuit racing awareness over the last couple of years and its garage of signature black racecars is bursting at the seams; it’s now firmly established as one of the top tier teams with rigorous professional standards and big ambitions for the future.

The team is led by Khun ‘Kiki’ Sak Nana and not only has he brought his own vast racing experience to the operation in the pursuit of the best international standards but he’s also putting all the building blocks in place for the team’s reach for the skies as well as kicking off his mission to create Thai racing ‘stars of the future’.

Arguably Khun Kiki is the best-known racing driver in Thailand and, sensationally for motorsport fans, has come the news that this year he will be seen in competitive action in TSS once again. He plans to get behind the wheel of one of the team’s trio of new SEAT Leon Cup Racers that are set to contest the inaugural TCR Thailand when his international racing commitments permit.

Khun Grant Supaphong, the newly crowned Super Car Class 3-GTC champion, and Khun Chen Jian Hong, who switches over from the Toyota factory team, will drive the team’s two full season TCR Thailand entries. Along with representation as usual in Super Pickup and Super Eco it all adds up to quite a formidable lineup.

Finally, TSS President Sontaya Kunplome isn’t just the driving force behind Thailand’s premier race series and its jewel in the crown event, the Bangsaen Thailand Speed Festival, but he’s equally well known as a committed driver who has been racing sportscars for many years with plenty of success along the way.

Almost equally well known to the fans is his Porsche 997 GT3 Cup, which is famous particularly for its signature ‘Bangsaen Blue’ livery and is a fundamental part of the domestic racing landscape. It’s also a machine with a great racing record in his hands.

And that enviable record seems all set to continue into 2016 as the car’s currently receiving an overhaul at the Porsche Centre Pattanakarn and so it should be fully rejuvenated and ready to be back in the thick of this year’s action.

Drivers’ & Team Managers’ Meeting gets the ball rolling

One of the key pre season landmarks is the official ‘Drivers & Team Managers Meeting’. This event was held at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club last week where improvements being made to the regulations for 2016 were outlined. A productive evening in the Club’s Henri Dunant Hall puts into place the detailed evolutions as the ‘New Era’ of Thai motorsport rapidly heads towards ‘Season Four’.

Starting from the ‘entry level’ end of the programme, Super Eco will continue to provide drivers with a foothold into motorsport, a platform that genuinely promotes basic learning. Accessibility to racing is fundamental to the TSS mission and while Super Eco will remain reserved for Class C licence holders it will be split into two classes to reflect the different skill levels of novice drivers, as TSS Vice President Preeda Tantemsapya, explains. “While all drivers are Class C level we see regular drivers, ones with a bit more experience, more usually on the podium and we want to help brand new drivers to Super Eco to be rewarded for their efforts, so we are going to split into two groups ‘C’ and ‘C+’ to address this,” he says. The two classes will enjoy podiums and be awarded trophies subject to a minimum of seven entries in the respective class.

The meeting also confirmed that new regulations being introduced regarding the positioning of fuel piping inside the car to further improve safety will extend through every category and that means they will also be applicable to Super Eco.

Stepping up to Super Production, this popular category will remain essentially the same and continue to limit technical modifications to the applicable B-segment hatchbacks and sedans, except for the incorporation the new fire safety regulations and also to optimise the requirements for hand held fire extinguishers ahead the introduction of plumbed in systems in 2017.

However arguably the most interesting news comes with the introduction of a brand new category, dubbed Super Compact, which will replace Super 1500 in the programme. TSS aims to be at the forefront of emerging motorsport trends in Thailand, introducing new categories in line with demand, understanding and shaping where the sport is headed. The direction of the Thai production car market has been turned on its head in recent years and in particular the highly competitive sub compact segment has exploded in different directions. Major OEMs retailing sub compact cars in Thailand, such as Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Mazda have chosen totally different directions in terms of their PUs, choosing different capacities, different methodologies for forced induction and efficiency technology as well as different fuel requirements with diesel as well as ethanol blends pushing into the subcompact segment.

This has left few traditional options available to ‘evolve’ Super 1500 and so a completely new – and radical – concept has been called for. Putting cars such as the new-generation Honda Jazz GK and the turbodiesel Mazda2 with its incorporated Skyactiv technology onto a level playing field has called for plenty of fresh thinking. We haven’t been afraid to take major decisions to benefit Thai motorsport and its participants and with our pioneering success in benchmarking Balance of Performance (BoP) rules in Super Car, the TSS technical team decided that bringing those metrics to a replacement category was the optimum way forward.

“This class will be open to a wide range of cars that are essentially one step up from Super Eco with modifications allowed,” notes Khun Preeda. “It will be based on BoP to allow different types of engines to be used so the more HP you have the more weight will be added in a rigid scale per HP. That will open Super Compact up to a wide range of cars, instead of fixing to 1.5-litres which is a capacity that’s seen a significant reduction in emphasis in recent years. 1.6-litre cars will now be allowed, but with weight added by BoP to compensate and this will also put us in line with future engines that are coming from next year.”

As well as allowing a diverse range of production cars to be modified to race, using a robust BoP platform would not only allow a wide range of cars to enter but at the same time it would create a category where teams could comprehensively engineer their racecars that would allow budding engineers to learn and evolve their skills while enjoying a clear separation to the successful Super Production category. Khun Preeda points this out, saying that “a lot of drivers in Super Production want to have more modified cars and more power, so we will drop the rules on compression ratios and for example you will be able to fit twin cams to the Jazz.”
 
Teams will declare the HP of their car, which will be dyno tested pre season in the same manner as Super Car, and the engines will then be sealed. “Teams will be allowed to apply to make in season modifications and then break their seals, but the cars will then have to go back on the dyno and the BoP adjusted before they re-enter races,” he says.

TSS will develop its own propriety benchmark BoP rules for Super Compact’s inaugural season. “We have essentially used the HP range from last year’s Super 1500 where we have already gathered a lot of data to provide a baseline and each HP upwards will see weight added to compensate,” Khun Preeda adds. He also mentions that as a new category HANS devices will be mandatory.

Super Pickup will see zero smoke strictly applied this year. “We have been working towards this goal, of no smoke, for the three years of TSS,” says Khun Preeda. “This rule has been difficult to umpire as there have been questions over judgment but now with a blanket ban it can be enforced uniformly. Also the new RAAT regulations for 2016 say that any pickup series must have no smoke so it has to be fully enforced.”

For Super 2000 the main change for 2016 revolves around a more level application of ‘success ballast’ that will be evenly applied as it’s awarded to cars that finish in first, second or third place, eliminating the rule that allows cars that are over the minimum weight limit to potentially have some of that ballast negated. This regulation will now be applied across all categories in TSS. That will ensure greater fairness in that ballast will always be applied as it’s earned.

Super Car Class 3-GTC is going to see a reduction in the size of restrictors for cars that utilise forced induction to bring greater parity to normally aspirated PUs. “We want to have the power broadly in the range of FIA GT4 class cars,” says Khun Preeda. Class 3-GTC machines will also need to feature an [interface] to allow MoTeC [data loggers] to be installed to monitor BoP.”

That’s the same story for Class 2-GTM where cars must be fitted with a MoTeC unit to measure performance for BoP adherence. Khun Preeda says though that they will now look to increase the available metrics for BoP in the middle ‘Super Car’ category, rather than just focusing on adding weight, to allow for optmised application. “We will look at the results of the BoP tests to understand better how to adjust, look at which car is gaining where, so we don’t just use weight, but take into consideration areas such as ride height for example and we will look at aero,” he explains. “We will do this with the experts from MoTeC to find the best way to balance the individual cars.”
 
After the success of the first ever ‘triple header’ for Class 2-GTM, which took place last November in Bangsaen, this bumper format will be reapplied again this year and also incorporated into the programme for the season opener in Buriram, meaning there will be ten rounds this year in a ‘3-2-2-3’ race format. As previously announced the category will be split into two classes eligible for podiums visits and the awarding of trophies to the top five finishers, namely ‘Pro Am’ and the new ‘Am’. There will in fact be three classes for Class 2-GTM; however the top class, ‘Pro’, will see qualifying drivers carrying additional ballast according to their ranking and slotted into the Pro Am class results.

Class 2-GTM will also see the regulations tightened up to remove the eligibility of older, formerly FIA GT3 compliant cars that had since seen their homologation lapse. Previous FIA GT3 homologated cars will be allowed to continue to race in Class 1-GT3 and to be fully updated to current specifications.

Finally, the exciting new TCR category, which will be incorporated into the TSS programme this year, was a key focus of attention during the proceedings. With TSS being appointed as the promoter of TCR Thailand this has allowed it to capitalise on the opportunities presented by the new ‘touring car’ concept, which has been carefully developed from a fresh sheet of paper.

As well as being able to manage the import of the cars into Thailand, TSS will also be able to assist drivers with a unique financing scheme that will involve 50% of the car purchase cost being deferred for 24 months with conditions. “TCR is receiving quite a lot of interest now,” says Khun Preeda. “Lots of people are deciding and talking about and particularly want to know the running costs involved.”

TSS is targeting 10 racecars on the grid for the inaugural season of TCR Thailand, which will enjoy eight point scoring races as part of the TSS weekends. TCR Thailand drivers will also be able to enter the TCR Asia Series and TCR International Series rounds to be held in Buriram this year and that means they will have the opportunity to take part in a total of twelve races in Thailand spread over six events.

TCR Thailand will run on a Michelin control tyre this year, as part of a core strategy of keeping costs to a minimum, while after a successful 2015 debut season Federal Tyres will continue to supply the control compounds for all other classes apart from Super Car.

TSS will further respond to demand for cost management by seeking to introduce a control tyre to Super Car in 2017. Again for this year eight slick tyres will be permitted to be used over an official weekend, apart from during Super Car Class 2-GTM’s two ‘triple headers’ where the tyre allowance will rise to twelve.

“I think the meeting went very well, we had a good turnout and I think after three years competitors trust us now and know that we want to be fair and equal to everybody, that we are working really hard to create a level playing field,” concludes Khun Preeda. “With the use of BoP we are becoming more and more precise and I think most people are prepared to give us room to work.”
 
Reaching for the stars

‘Kiki’ Sak Nana. He’s certainly a household name in Thailand; arguably our most famous racing driver, in fact he’s part driver/part myth, a genuine urban legend. His pedigree is unquestioned and in Thailand he’s already raced in TSS, in Super Car in 2013 (Lamborghini) and 2014 (Porsche), but last year he was concentrating, very successfully, on racing abroad. That makes him one of a small handful of our drivers that have translated success in Thailand into international success and that’s capped really by his winning his class at the toughest race of them all, the Nürburgring 24 Hours, a few years ago.

Khun Kiki is currently racing in Germany and bagging trophies but he has a twofold new challenge, to build a top-level team in Thailand that can enjoy success across multiple categories and then to use that platform to develop drivers from raw novices all the way to fully fledged professionals capable of holding their heads up in world class events. Sensationally for Thai fans though has come the recent news that he will be seen racing the TSS again this year.

Pitching up in TSS was a no brainer, reckons Khun Kiki. “Everybody from TSS has put in maximum effort, everybody from the top guy downwards, so this is why I want my team to support this event, we spend all our budget for this event, to make the pit as best we can, to make the cars as best we can,” he reckons.

His team has evolved rapidly too. In 2014 the Krating Daeng effort was built around Khun Kiki’s entry into Super Car Class 1-GT3 with a Porsche 997 GT3-R while running a couple of cars in Super Car Class 3-GTC and a tiddler in Super Eco.

Now the team is quickly building up its racing platform and it won’t be stopping there. “We are planning to race in every class in the future, but the budget is quite high [to do that] so the budget slowly increases, so we start with Super Eco, we have two cars in the class and then we start in Super Pickup, we have two cars in the class now then in Super Car Class 3.”

Last year with the complete switch by Khun Kiki from the racing cockpit in TSS and into the role of Team Principal the Krating Daeng Racing Team smashed its way out of the paddock humdrum to stand up as one of the big teams alongside established entities such as Toyota Team Thailand, Vattana Motorsport and Singha Motorsport Team Thailand. It was a successful year too as Khun Grant Supaphong won the Class 3-GTC title in the team’s Mitsubishi Evo X while Khun Konpichit Toyingcharoen won the Super Eco title and the raw truck ‘rookies’, Khun Philip Massoud and Khun Songkran Yamamura, finished second and third in Super Pickup Class C.

Krating Daeng liveried racing trucks? Admittedly it was something of a surprise when over the close-season of 2014-2015 this team announced that it would have two entries in Super Pickup, but Khun Kiki sees that that truck racing is a good fit for the team and that this category after struggling for a few seasons is now enjoying a revival.

“I want to help make motorsport in Thailand a little bit better, as much as I can possibly do,” he explains. “But as they say ‘Rome wasn’t built in one day’ and so we start with the small cars and now the bigger cars and we got a gap in the middle, so we get two cars in the trucks, to make the class more interesting and increase our fan club area.”

Krating Daeng has certainly set a new visual standard in Super Pickup and that’s already rubbing off on the rest of the grid as standards start to climb in the category. “I try to make the car look the same quality as world class cars, so the car looks nice and looks shiny and I believe the rest of the trucks will do soon also and the class will look good,” explains Khun Kiki. “I think [in 2016] all the trucks will look shiny and look a lot better than the past.

“We try everything to make TSS look better and better, when I go to any country and talk about motorsport it always comes back to Thailand Super Series, so if this event looks good I look good with it also,” he adds.

This is a man that not only loves motorsport but also is really driven to be the best – and it’s the same story for anyone who wants to wear the team’s black, red and gold colours, they shouldn’t expect an easy ride. So not only did Krating Daeng rock up with two new Isuzu racing trucks last year but they were driven by two names that were both totally unknown in the TSS paddock, Khun Philip Massed and Khun Songkran Yamamura. That’s no longer the case, both very quickly impressed and both clearly have the talent to progress and make big names for themselves in motorsport.

“First of all you have to bear in mind they have zero experience, they never drove in Buriram before, they never drove in Bira before,” says Khun Kiki. “So I’m pushing them really hard, I walk round the track every night with them and I point out the braking points, the turning points, every single detail and teach them psychology-wise and driving skill wise and how to use the car to the maximum performance.”

Khun Kiki knows just how much hard work it takes to succeed and while Khun Philip and Khun Songkran have clearly been able to hold their own and show plenty of pace in a highly competitive category, he’s also not going to smother them in praise just yet. “I’m not fully happy with them yet, as they are making mistakes, but I’m still happy with them,” he says.

As well as the stature as one of the great Thai drivers of the current generation Khun Kiki is clearly now committed to bringing on new Thai drivers and taking his vast experience internationally and translating it into the Thai paddock. He demands the highest standards of preparation from his mechanics – his signature black cars are always the most immaculate in the paddock – and it’s the same right across the team as he demands top fitness standards from his drivers.

So one of the key objectives of this robust new team platform will be to use it to develop Thai stars of the future. “My target is to produce new drivers and then when they are good I will send them to race in Asia and then when they are good to race in Asia I will send them to race around the world, so the final target will be races like the Spa 24 Hours and Nürburgring 24 Hours, this is the main target,” he says.

“These new drivers I will coach them, teach them, mentally teach them and their health, and all of them will do a lot of exercise because the regulation of the team is if you cant run 10 km in 60 minutes I will ask that person to leave the team,” he continues. “So before the races, about 10 days before everybody has to do fitness tests.”
 
This year the Krating Daeng Racing Team is set to further strengthen its presence in TSS as its line up of racecars is tweaked. “My plan is to [switch from] Super Car Class 3 and have TCR instead,” says Khun Kiki. “I think we will start [with TCR] in Thailand and then do Asia and then do the world.” 2016 will see TSS launching ‘TCR Thailand’ and having this team in the middle of action is certainly going to add further punch to the new touring car concept.

For its debut in TCR the team has announced a strong full time driver lineup for two of its three new SEAT León Cup Racer machines. Khun Grant switches across from Krating Daeng’s now defunct Class 3-GTC programme to drive one of the new cars while Khun Chen Jian Hong is a new signing, the Taiwanese driver arriving after several seasons with the factory-run Toyota team in Super 2000.

The Spanish-built racecars will be shipped to Thailand this month. Most exciting for Thai motorsport fans has been the news that Khun Kiki will drive the third car in a part programme when he doesn’t have clashing commitments in Germany.

For a racing driver of this stature to place his name on the entry list for the inaugural season of TSS is a huge vote of confidence in the brand new TCR Thailand format, which already looks to be well on its way to a successful debut year.

In Super Eco the team’s brace of Suzuki Swifts will be driven once again by Khun Konpichit Toyingcharoen, who impressively won the entry level category’s overall title last year, and the fast improving Khun Paveen Dangsa-nga.

Khun Kiki will have a busy year too. “For me I will mainly do the championship in Germany and the [Nürburgring] 24 hours but I will support Thailand Super Series and all the drivers in the team,” he adds. And the ‘icing on the cake’, is that we will see him back in action on the track too. That’s certainly been missed.

New lease of life for a familiar car

TSS President Sontaya Kunplome isn’t just the driving force behind Thailand’s premier race series and its jewel in the crown event, the Bangsaen Thailand Speed Festival, but he’s equally well known as a committed driver who has been racing sportscars for many years with plenty of success along the way.

Almost equally well known to Thai motorsport fans is the Porsche 997 GT3 Cup he campaigns, which is famous for its signature ‘Bangsaen Blue’ livery and is a fundamental part of the domestic racing landscape. It’s also a machine with a great record in his hands, last year Khun Sontaya topped the Super Car Class 3-GTC points’ classification after the first round and remained in the title battle all season long.

The ‘#8’ Porsche actually has a long history in domestic motorsport, as, before being acquired by Khun Sontaya, it was raced by another successful Thai driver, Khun Vutthikorn Inthraphuvasak, in Porsche Carrera Cup Asia (PCCA).

It’s a car though that’s had a long and hard racing life and at the end of last TSS season it was deemed that a major mechanical overhaul was required, including a full engine rebuild and transmission overhaul.

So there was some excellent symmetry to the fact the work was undertaken by the official authorised Porsche Importer for Thailand at its purpose-built new facility, the Porsche Centre Pattanakarn. That’s because the importer is synonymous with Khun Vutthikorn and has supported his racing successes through its in house team of technicians, so the car – literally – was ‘coming home’.

Porsche Centre Bangkok Assistant Chairman Peter Rohwer has clear and fond memories of this Porsche dating back to when their team ran it with much success. “We were first racing in the Carrera Cup Asia in the [Porsche] 996 [GT3 Cup] which was then replaced by the [Porsche] 997 [GT3 Cup] and Vutthikorn decided to stay in the Carrera Cup Asia with the new 997,” he says. “It was a very different car to the 996, as all of a sudden we had no ABS, no Traction [Control], nothing, it was just brake balance, it was a new experience and we really had to get used to this car.
 
“Altogether we did quite well, we got some podiums and we raced this car for three years,” Khun Peter continues. “Vutthikorn due to other commitments with the business stopped in the Carrera Cup and the car was then sold to Khun Sontaya who has successfully raced this car in TSS for many years; it’s become a famous car, especially in Bangsaen.”

Khun Peter explains the work being undertaken now in Porsche Centre Pattanakarn. “We are reworking all the wear and tear items like the brakes, driveshafts and so on,” he says. “The engine came to the end of its life so we decided to get a reconditioned engine from Porsche [while] the transmission was done here locally so it will be ready for next season, the gearbox has had new seals and a couple of bearings.”
 
The reconditioned power unit, built to the same specification, has just arrived and being the Porsche Importer they are able to acquire the replacement before the outgoing engine is returned. “We have the advantage as we are the Porsche importer that we have a close connection with Porsche Motorsport so we can get the engine from Porsche more quickly due to time constraints, import procedures, in time for the new season,” Khun Peter says.

The technical team in Pattanakarn, who clearly have fond memories of this particular 997, are all looking forward to seeing ‘#8’ getting a new lease of life. “The car should be ready for a good couple of years,” says Khun Peter. “I would like to see the car still on track as it has a good history and a very good owner, we’re looking forward to seeing it doing well in TSS once again.”

Motorsport doesn’t have room for sentimentality though and Khun Peter reckons they were the only choice to carry out the work. “As we are the Porsche Importer, we are best placed in terms of technical advice and technical manuals and we receive updates as they happen on all the Cup cars, the GT3-Rs, that need implementing, like a recall or a technical campaign, which nobody else has, so we can adapt these cars, improve their quality for a longer life,” he says.

The technical team that’s backed up Khun Vutthikorn’s on track success has recently been relocated to the new facility. “We decided to have in the new Porsche Centre Pattanakarn the team that’s been with us for quite a long time, a long time in racing and working on our racecars so we are capable of doing complete repairs on racecars in terms of wear and tear and on gearboxes,” says Khun Peter. “But we don’t touch the engine because the engine has to be sent back to Porsche in Germany because here we don’t have the equipment to X-ray the housings of the engine for any internal cracks, but everything else we can do. The body and paint is still done in Porsche Centre Bangkok as we have the body shop there, but the technical work can all be done here.”

Last year PCCA supported TSS’s second round, which was held in Buriram, and that’s going to be the same story in 2016 as the Porsche one make series will join our return trip to the North East in late July. That means Khun Vutthikorn, unquestionably one of the most successful drivers of the Thai ‘Super Car’ era, will be back in the TSS paddock again, as Khun Peter explains.

“Vutthikorn will race in the Carrera Cup [Asia] again this year, we have a good experience of one year already so we like to continue and hopefully win the championship this year,” he says.

“We’re very much looking forward to going to Buriram this year again, we had a fantastic weekend last year, we had a lot of support from our customers, from the Porsche Club, from the 911 Club and we had a lot of PR also for our sponsor so everybody was very happy and we’re looking forward to doing this again. This time we will provide a Safety Car again and invite our customers to promote motorsport even more in Thailand.”