21 Jan 2018 Former F1 driver and top Chinese drivers take the crown as former Le Mans winner retires 2018 Circuit Hero 600km Endurance Race

In the afternoon on 21 January 2018, 2018 Circuit Hero 600km Endurance Race officially commences at Zhuhai International Circuit. The race attracted over 26 entries with 77 drivers. Among them the most eye-catching are the #8 Shaun Thong/March Lee/Kevin Tse/Alex Yoong team and the #1 Hugues Ripert/Stephane Ortelli team.

Marchy Lee, one of the top Chinese drivers, brought former F1 driver Alex Yoong of Malaysia to Zhuhai for this race. This fully explains the importance and competitiveness of the Circuit Hero race. #19 has a strong line up as well, as Stephane Ortelli is the 1998 Le Mans winner. Former F1 driver versus former Le Mans winner, this Circuit Hero 600km Endurance Race is going to be a classic.

The race begins, all the drivers make good starts. #8 goes into turn 1 in the lead， #19 follows closely behind. #13 makes a good start and is up to third place. Soon #8 shows its speed and pulls out a gap at a rate of 2 seconds per lap. After 20 laps, the gap is over half a minute. Behind the 4 open class cars is the #98 class A entry in fifth place. #15 and #59 committed infringements and are given drive through penalties. Fortunately for them they both carry out their penalties without losing places.

At 37 minutes, #13 goes for its pit stop and driver change. This begins the wave of pit stops. The regulations permit four drivers per car and each driver can drive continuously for no more than 45 minutes. This is to safeguard the drivers’ safety and maintain fairness.

When the last car to stop, #19, returns to the track, the first wave of driver changes are over. The order now is #8, #19, #88 and #13. But #13 makes a mistake at Turn 11 after passing #98. The race officials show the yellow flag and send out the safety car. The gap between #8 and #19 is reduced to zero and the former F1 driver and former Le Mans winner are within sight of each other again.

The safety car procedure bunched up the field and that brings along the chances of further accidents. #15 and #90 clashed on track and both cars are removed from the track by the marshals. The race officials send out the safety car once again.

After the second round of pit stops, the order is #8, #19, #88, and #13. #59 of class A is fifth overall. At 3 p.m. #8 continues to lead with #19 one lap behind.

At 3:25 p.m., #10 stops by the side of the track at turn 6. As the race officials are dealing with this incident, #19’s left rear tyre blew, giving out a lot of smoke. After it returns to the pits, #19 retires from the race due to excessive damage. The 1998 Le Mans winner is now out of the race.

At 4:11 p.m., the race leading #8 has completed 120 laps and victory is in sight. In the last 10 laps, #8 is already 10 laps clear of the second placed car.

#9 succumbs to the rigorous conditions and stops with 160km still to go. That is the truth of endurance racing. The cars and drivers must endure in order to get a result.

With 3 laps to go, #8 slows down. Second placed #88 is also two laps ahead of #13. Across the finish line, #8 wins the 141 laps race at Zhuhai International Circuit. The driver combination of Alex Yoong, Marchy Lee, Shaun Thong and Kevin Tse proves to be invincible. #8 also sets the fastest lap of the race, 1:33.927. #88 Liu Peng/Che Liang/Jiao Peng take second place while #13 Wang Guo-Yu/Xie Zheng-Ge finish third.

In class A, #98 Eric Wong/Robert Webb/Anthony Chan/Dominic Ang takes class victory and fourth overall. The spoils for class B is taken by #16 Gary Sham/Xu Lei-Ye/Zeng Huan-Yao/Cao Jin-Jun. Victory in class C is enjoyed by #55 Rao Long/Wang Jian-Feng/Li Ying-Xi/Zeng Zhi-Feng. Weng Jia-Ling/Jia Rui takes the Ladies Cup after completing 90 laps. The two females drivers persistence is widely admired.

After the race, Marchy Lee said, “Everything went according to plan. We led by two laps early on, but the two safety car periods brought us backwards. But after 2.5 hours the Mercedes had a problem and stopped, then it became easy for us. The car and team performed perfectly. This was a good race.”

Alex Yoong said, “Because Marchy and Shaun had to go to Hong Kong for an event yesterday, so they drafted me in for qualifying. I did a few stints in the race, the car was very fast and the team was perfect.”