12 Dec 2012 Battle to the finish - Round 7 of the 2012 AFR Championship

On 8 December 2012 afternoon, Round 7 of the 2012 AFR Series took place at 3pm at ZIC under sunny skies and mild temperatures. With the top drivers close in total point’s standings, the battle to become series champion was more exciting than ever in today’s race.

When the start lights went off, the large 22 car grid all battled into turn one, and the fight continued with all drivers close together during the entire first two laps. With drivers passing and re-passing each other, the race became not only a battle for position, but also a battle of attrition as 6 of 22 drivers DNF– several caught off the track and several with mechanical mishaps.

No 77 car Zhang Yi Chun who was from PS Racing stopped T1 because of the mechanical problem in a sudden in Lap 7, causing a full course yellow and safety car deployment. After three laps under the safety car, the track was cleared and the single file restart took place.

When the checkered flag came out a few laps later, in the end it was Buzz Racing’s Yosuke Yamazake with the win, Satoshi Kosugi in 2nd, Shigetomo Shimono in 3rd, with FRD’s Shaun Thong just 1 second behind in 4th. In the IFC Class, it was PS Racing’s Michael Choi with the win, and Champ Motorsport’s Michael Ho and Victor Yung 2nd and 3rd, respectively.

Going into today’s Round 8, the final race of the 2012 season, Yosuke and Satoshi are both still possible to become AFR’s International category champion. Shigetomo, Shaun Thong, and Satoshi are all possible to become champion runner up and 2nd runner up in the total points. While those drivers are guaranteed positions 1-4 in the final points standings, Li Zhi Cong of ART will finish 5th – though not competing in the final two rounds, he had strong enough results in the previous rounds to make a sizable gap to 6th place, which will be battled over by Im Chewon of Kim’s Racing, Drift Innovation/ChildFund driver Pete Olson, Jason Kang of KRC, and Alexandra Asmasoebrata of PS Racing.

With all of these drivers making their final hard push of the 2012 season, today’s Round 8 surely will bring an another exciting AFR battle to the Zhuhai International Circuit!