Bangkok--20 Sep--
15 year old Thai maintains his Asian Formula Renault Championship lead
The Asian Formula Renault Championship rounds 7 and 8 were held at Zhuhai International Circuit in China on September 18-19, 2010.
Qualifying for this event started Saturday afternoon on September 18th, 2010. The 15 year old Thai racing driver, Sandy Stuvik sponsored by The Pizza Company, Dacon Inspection Services and TUV SUD PSB lived up to everyone's expectations by setting the fastest lap time of practice session one, followed by Chi Cong Li. Sandy Stuvik managed to maintain his fast pace in session two while Xiao Le He overtook other competitors and produced the 2nd fastest time of the session. The young lady from Indonesia, Alexandra captured 3 rd position of the session.
There seems to be no doubt in anyone's mind that Sandy Stuvik would secure the pole after his great performance during the official practice sessions and he didn't disappoint anyone by occupying the top of the chart throughout the whole session. To make it more convincing, he did the fastest time of 1.38.193 on lap 12 which put him 0.8 second ahead of the second place finisher.
The qualifying session finished with Sandy taking Pole position, Venezuela’s Samin Gomes second and China’s Chi Cong Li third.
Sandy starting from Pole Position at Zhuhai International Circuit, China
Race 1 started at 11.30 on September 19, 2010 with Sandy starting from pole position. The Thai driver had a good start and by the end of the first lap he had already left the chasing field far behind. Although the race saw plenty of drama with 5 racers not finishing the race, for Sandy it was a quite uneventful race controlling his leading gap.
Sandy eventually took the race win while Chi Cong Li and Hong Wei Cao from China got the 2nd and the 3rd respectively.
(In picture) from left: Chi Cong Li, Sandy Stuvik and Hong Wei Cao
Race 2 Sandy again started Race 2 Sunday afternoon from Pole position and had a good start immediately opening up a big gap to the second placed Hong Wei Cao. However a huge accident after T14 involving car number 27 and 23 brought out the red flags. Both racers recovered well from the accident. On the re-start Sandy again took the lead and built another lead, but again on the following lap a car spun after T1 and Safety Car was called out. During the two laps behind the safety car Sandy’s car began developing engine problems and on the restart he could not reach top revs anymore and immediately started falling back down the grid. By the final lap Sandy was defending as much as possible and eventually finished 4th. However, as car number 9 had overtaken under Safety Car, Sandy moved up one position to finish with a 3rd.
Sandy was disappointed at first, haven fallen from such a commanding position due to engine problems, but are still satisfied with a third place and having set the fastest lap even with a broken engine. He still maintains a large lead in the Championship going into the final to events.
Sandy still leads the 2010 Asian Formula Renault Championship with a commanding 182 points, in front of China’s Hong Wei Cao with 155 points and Venezuela’s Samin Gomes on 111 points. The Thai driver takes his strong Championship lead to the next race, Shanghai F1 International Circuit in China on October 4th and 5th, 2010.
AFR CHAMPIONSHIP
Zhuhai International Circuit
RACE 1 - ROUND7
1 - Sandy Stuvik - Asia Racing Team - 10 laps in 16'43"598
2 - Chi Cong Li - Asia Racing Team + 4"449
3 — Cao Hong Wei — FRD Sports + 6"124
4 - Tin Sritrai - Asia Racing Team + 15"772
5 — Victor Yung — Champ + 28”642
6 — Samin Gomez — Top Speed + 33”142
7 — Sunny Wong — Champ + 37”250
8 — Wai Kai Un — Champ +42”339
9 — Diana Ros?rio — FRD Sports + 42”876
10 — Angelo Negro — Top Speed + 51”623
11 — Ivo Yiu — Champ + 55”716
12 — Alexandra Asmasoebrata + 57”709
Did Not Finish
DNF — Xiao Le He — FRD Sports — 6 laps
DNF — Zhang Ran — Asia Racing Team — 2 laps
DNF — Suriya Bala — Asia Racing Team — 1 lap
DNF — Luca Ferigutti — Asia Racing Team — 1 lap
RACE 2 — ROUND8
1 — Cao Hong Wei — FRD Sports, 7 laps in 26'43"994
2 - Tin Sritrai - Asia Racing Team + 1"162
3 - Sandy Stuvik - Asia Racing Team + 3”968
4 — Samin Gomez — Top Speed + 4”102
5 — Wai Kai Un — Champ + 6”158
6 — Suriya Bala — Asia Racing Team + 6”213
7 — Angelo Negro — Top Speed + 7”226
8 - Alexandra Asmasoebrata + 8”938
9 — Ivo Yiu — Champ + 11”746
10 - Victor Yung — Champ + 13”219
11 — Zhang Ran — Asia Racing Team + 14”075
12 — David Lau — Champ + 21”006
13 - Chi Cong Li - Asia Racing Team + 1’03"517
Did Not Finish
DNF - Sunny Wong — Champ — 4 laps
DNF - Diana Ros?rio — FRD Sports — 4 laps
DNF — Luca Ferigutti — Asia Racing Team — 1 lap
DNF — Xiao Le He — FRD Sports — 1 lap
For more information, please see http://www.frdsports.com/en/a_renault