18 Jun 2017 Arvin Esmaeili took his maiden win in Zhuhai
Race 10
Formula Masters welcomes 2 new race winners, Taylor Cockerton from Cebu Pacific by Pinnacle Motorsport took his maiden win in Zhuhai in Race 10 and Arvin Esmaeili from Absolute racing took his first victory in Race 11 after taking a huge risk by going on slicks on a very wet but drying track.
Race 10 was held on Sunday morning and the heavy rain stopped hours before the race, but the track was still fairly damp and cars went out on their out lap, some with wet tires and some on Rain tires. On the grid most cars decided to change to slicks. The short 7 lap race was won by Taylor Cockerton and Tomoki Takahashi from Super License took the 2nd place with Kurt Hill from Eurasia Motorsport in 3rd. In the Masters Cup, Zhang Ya Qi won again followed by Hu Nan and Angie King who took 2nd and 3rd place.
All drivers went out on slicks with the exception of Hu Nan and Angie King who played it safe and chose rain tires.
Race 10 got under way with a standing start, however car 12 Ben Grimes from Cebu Pacific by Pinnacle Motorsport, stalled on the grid. Grimes’ Car was pushed into the pit lane and could restart his car and rejoined the race.
In the first corner, Chinese driver James Yu spun and ended up in the gravel trap. The Safety car came out for one lap to recover James’ Car. At the restart defending championship leader, Daniel Lu battling with Danial Frost missed his breaking point and retired. And Danial Frost ran wide but managed to continue and dropped back to 10th position In the same lap, Luo Kai Luo from Linky Racing spun out at turn 9.
On lap 4, Tomoki Takahashi took over the lead followed closely by Taylor Cockerton and Taylor managed to overtake Tomoki on lap 6. Tomoki tried very hard to get back the first place, but Taylor successfully defended his position, and took the car home.
Mexican driver Manuel Cabrera was having a strong race in third place but made a mistake and Kurt Hill took advantage of his and went on to finish in third place.
Zhang Ya Qi drove significantly faster than yesterday after he managed to get some mileage on the ZIC track, he was in fifth for a long time although he did not keep the position to the end, he finished in 9th overall and won the Master Cup class.
Driver quotes：
#11 Taylor Cockerton (Race 10, Winner)
“I really enjoy the race, the bad weather made the race more interesting, yesterday I said I would fight for the championship, now I did it, and this feels great.”
#6 Tomoki Takahashi (Race 10, 2nd place)
“It was a good race, the competition is really intense, I was not far from Taylor, and I think I had chance to win, so I cannot say I am satisfied with the second place, I want to win the first place in next race.”
#96 Kurt Hill (Race 10, 3rd place)
“It feels good to stand on the podium, I am happy and I want to say thanks to my team, they did good job on the car.”
#14 Zhang Ya Qi (Race 10, Masters Cup winner)
“What I want to do is just participate more races, and learn more. The result is good”
#20 Angie King (Race 10, Masters Cup 2nd place)
“Yesterday I had my first race in FMS, but I did not finish, today I need to focus on the controlling of my car, so me and my team decided to use rain tires, I think we did well”
#8 Hu Nan (Race 10, Masters Cup 3rd place)
“I planned to stay on the track and finish the race, so for safety I chose rain tires, now I can say I made a right decision.”
Race 11
Race 11 saw plenty of drama and fierce racing. The track was wet with lots of standing water, but the rain had stopped and the track was slowly drying. Leaving the paddock most cars were on wet weather tires. When the cars arrived on the grid, most cars stayed on wet tires, but pole sitter Singaporean driver Danial Frost from Eurasia Motorsport decided to change to slicks, a very risky move as the track at that time was definitely still very wet. Further down the grid, Ben Grimes and Arvin Esmaeili decided to take a gamble as well and changed to slicks.
Before the race even started during the warm-up lap pole sitter Danial Frost spun out whilst trying the warm up his slick tyres. Such were the conditions at the start of the race. The race got under way using a standing start.
And Daniel Lu, who was handed the lead from Danial Frost managed to stay in front from the start. But had to drive the race of his live to keep hard charging drivers behind him, with these conditions, Tyre pressure strategy was going to be key. He first got under attack from Taylor Cockerton who appeared to be faster. But after 3 laps, Tyre pressures were going up and Taylor dropped back, next was Tomoki Takahashi charging hard, who stayed close for another 4 laps after which it was Kurt Hill’s turn to put the pressure on Daniel Lu. Who drove exceptionally hard and smart to keep the drivers behind him.
Whilst this battle was being fought out, Arvin Esmaeili the Absolute Racing driver who started on slicks from 9th position, showed his skill and maturity and managed to keep his car on a very wet track. He was around 4 seconds slower per lap at the beginning of the race, but as a drier line slowly emerged, by lap 5 he was almost doing the same lap times as the leaders. However still only in 7th place, he slowly started to pick off drives one by one. On lap 9 he was in third place and he managed to close the gap and on the last lap he took the lead, by which time he was almost 4 seconds a lap faster than his competitors on rain tires.
A very big gamble but perfectly executed Arvin took his first win of the season, and we are looking forward to seeing more from this talented driver. Daniel Lu finished in 2nd and another strong performance from Kurt Hill finishing in 3rd.
The biggest winner from this weekend was Taylor Cockerton who managed to jump from 4th in the championship to 2nd with 123 points, just 18 points behind Championship Leader Daniel Lu with 141 points. Third in the championship is James Yu with 99 points who had a bad weekend compared to his stellar performance in Sepang. It looks like this championship could go down to the wire.