17 Jun 2017 Chaotic battle in the rain as Chen Wei-An achieves pole to flag victory (17 June Circuit Hero-One Race 3)

At 13:50 on 17 June, 2017 Pan Delta Circuit Hero-One race 3 of the year officially commences. Due to the tropical storm earlier in the week, rain has been falling on Zhuhai International Circuit since yesterday. The rain has reduced since noon but the wet track is still a big challenge for all the drivers.

In the qualifying session in the morning, #99 Audi R8 LMS driver Chen Wei-An won pole position. D2 Racing makes a strong comeback to the Circuit Hero-One fold as Guo Guo-Xin is in second place in his Mercedes-AMG GT3. #20 Lamborghini Huracan driver Huang Xi-Zhan and Go Kart Racing’s Cai Hui-Bang, in his Audi R8 LMS, are third and fourth on the grid.

Even though the rain has eased, the puddles on the track are still a concern. For safety reasons, the race organizers send out the safety car to lead the race start. On lap 2, #63 race car, starting in fifth place, suffers a problem and has to retire from the race.

The safety car leaves the track on lap 3, the race begins. The gaps among the race cars begin to grow. #99, #2, #20 and #4 form the leading group. Second placed Guo Guo-Xin begins to pressurize leader Chen Wei-An and sets a fastest lap of 1:49.627. But unfortunately he gets too anxious as he accelerates and spins at T14. This drops him down to 5th place.

#4 Cai Hui-Bang moves up to third place. The top 3 are #99, #20 and #4. The gap among them is about 1 second. Guo Guo-Xin tries to recover. With 7 laps remaining, he passes #31 Lou Zhi-Ming for fourth place, but he is 20 seconds behind the third placed driver.

On lap 9, #4 Cai Hui-Bang passes #20 Huang Xi-Zhan for second place. Huang makes a mistake after being passed and spins. But fortunately he faces the race direction after the spin and is still in third place. Though he is now just 3 seconds ahead of his teammate.

With 5 laps to go, a number of cars spin off the circuit, the safety car emerges again and the cars are bunched up. Guo Guo-Xin takes the chance to achieve another fastest lap 1:48.065.

With 2 laps remaining, the safety car is still on track and it looks like the race will end under the safety car. If that is the case, then the order is set. In the end, the safety car leads the field to the end of the race and everybody safely passes the finish line. The final order is: winner #99 Shaanxi Tianshi Racing Chen Wei-An; second #4 Go Kart Racing Cai Hui-Bang; third #20 D2 Racing Huang Xi-Zhan. Guo Guo-Xin of D2 Racing still wins class D and finishes fourth overall.

After the race, Chen Wei-An expressed that this win did not come as easily as the wins in Spring Race. The cars behind were very close and he had to do a lot of defending. Also with the multiple safety car periods, any gap he created were soon gone. Overall it was an exciting race. Second placed Cai Hui-Bang said on the last lap when the safety car leaves the track, there was still no chance to overtake. There were a lot of incidents in the race but the team told him to be patient and hold position, chances will come. He is quite satisfied with the end result.