17 Mar 2013 Great battles in Circuit Hero One

After the excitement and drama of ZIC Superbike Race, another popular race is ready to be staged. The Circuit Hero One race.

Unlike the original Circuit Hero which featured Honda Fits and Suzuki Swifts, Circuit Hero One now receives entries from more high-end sports cars. With years of development, a lot of racing teams have come into being and it has been getting increasingly difficult to accomodate all the entries. Some drivers also prefer to race against stronger opposition, therefore the race organizers have created Circuit Hero One for the more powerful and more highly tuned entries.

Actually all one has to do is look at the cars that have been entered, such as Mercedes C63, BMW M3 and Ferrari F360. Cars that can break into 1:50s, an indicator of good speed at ZIC, are certainly not few. With 24 cars removed to form Circuit Hero One, Circuit Hero Two still enjoys a very healthy 42 entries.

From Saturday morning's qualifying results, Mario Ferraris' Mercedes C63 is on pole position. William O'Brien, in his Caterham, lines up second.

As the track has just cleaned up the oil from the previous race, there is a lot of sawdust around the track and they get blown into the air as race cars drive past.

The race begins after the warm-up lap. Mario Ferraris makes a bad getaway and is swallowed by the field. But he has a powerful motor under his right foot. Just a matter of 2 corners later, he uses it to its full potential and claims his rightful place, at the very front. William O'Brien, who sprinted to the lead, is now second. No. 10 Li Qing-Xin is third. By the end of lap 1, the Mercedes C63 has opened up a huge gap of 7 seconds.

In the second group, the Ferrari F360 of Byron Tong and the BMW M3 of Zhu Xiao-Dong are running nose to tail. Both have kept their fight very clean. Meanwhile the pink coloured Merc C63 continues to motor away, on lap 4 his lead is as long as the main straight is, over O'Brien's Caterham.

The BMW M3 finally finds a way past the Ferrari at turn 1. Zhu Xiao-Dong cuts into the inside line but Byron Tong manages to defend his line. But at turn 4, Zhu Xiao-Dong tries again and Byron defends over anxiously and allows the M3 to pass around the outside. A lap later, maybe eager to fight back, Byron makes a mistake and spins off into the sand trap, thus retiring from the race.

Liu Jiang then tries to catch Li Qing-Xin in front of him. Li's Ariel Atom is a lightweight sportscar, its philosophy is vastly different from the M3. Li Qing-Xin is a skilled driver, although under pressure, he defends very well and stays on his racing line. At this time Mario Ferraris' lead is over 41 seconds. His fastest lap of 1:44s is way quicker than everyone else, who can only manage about 1:50s.

On the last lap, Mario Ferraris's Mercedes C63 wins by a massive 55 seconds. His fastest lap is an astonishing 1:44.179s. William O'Brien is second in his Caterham. Li Qing-Xin finishes third while Zhu Xiao-Dong is fourth.