08 Jan 2017 Radical DXR wins 600km battle - Circuit Hero 600km Endurance Race

On 8 January 2017, Circuit Hero 600km Endurance Race successfully concludes at Zhuhai International Circuit. After a 4 hours battle, XTreme Motorsport #17 Radical race car, driven by Xu Wei/Ling Kong, takes the chequered flag in 1st place.

Zhuhai's weather is sunny on race day. According to the qualifying results, #17 is on pole position, #22, #88, #98 and #36 are behind. As the race begins, the rhythm of the race is clearly divided into two halves. The first half when #17 and #22 battle for the race lead, the second half when #22 retires and #17 paces itself towards the flag.

At 12:30 p.m. 28 race cars storm through the grid in a rolling start of the race. #22 and #17 speed away from the rest, as they begin their battle for the lead. #22 sets a fastest lap but #17 quickly replies on the next lap. After see-sawing for 6 laps, the leading duo begins to come up against backmarkers. #22 uses the opportunity to pull out a 2 seconds lead. But after just two laps the gap is down to 0.2 second again. Then on lap 11, #17 speeds past #22 to become the race leader.

Before #22 is able to strike back, a stranded race car is found on track, triggering a full course yellow as well as the use of the safety car. #22 and many others pull into the pit lane for their pit stops. #22 re-joins in 9th place and begins to charge back. After half an hour it is back up to fifth place. The safety car is deployed again and #22 pits again. But this time its pit stop causes a fire and it has to retire after the fire is put out.

At 14:29, #85 Zhang Yao-Sheng enters the pit lane for his stop. But just as he approaches his pit, he suddenly accelerates and hits the crew members and driver of #80, as well as various equipment in the pit, resulting in injuries for 4 people, 3 of them are mechanics and the other is driver Zhang Yi. The 4 injured people are immediately dispatched to hospital by ambulance. They are diagnosed with various soft tissue damages and a few broken bones, but fortunately nobody had any life threatening injuries. After examining the videos of the accident and a report by the judges of fact, the stewards decided to disqualify #85 from the entire race meeting. The stewards also suggest the race organizers report the accident to the Chinese Autosport and Motorsport Federation. The race organizers state that they respect the stewards’ decision and have reported the accident to CAMF verbally, it will also file a full report as well as the driver’s information to CAMF after the race.

Afterwards, #17 continues to run solo in front, maintaining more or less a one lap gap over the second placed car. Behind #17, the gaps between #88, #7, #36, #11 and #77 are also expanding. The race is becoming more and more stable. But the result is still not confirmed. Second placed #88 is unable to continue as it stops after 71 laps. #36 also retires due to electrical problem.

As the clock points to 16:30, the race ends. 18 cars out of 28 starters finish the race. #17 completes 130 laps to win overall and the open class. Second overall goes to #11 of Asia Racing Team. Shaanxi Tianshi Racing’s #77 takes 3rd place overall.

The two drivers of #17 are European F3 driver Ling Kang and Xu Wei. Ling Kang said, “For the first half of the race we raced hard against the Mercedes SLS AMG. Their straight line speed was better, we could only catch and pass them when they came up against backmarkers. After they retired from the race, we did not feel too much pressure.”

#11 Yuan Sheng-Ping and Li Yan-Han took second overall and class A win. Yuan Sheng-Ping said, “The race was very hard, we had to protect our brakes and tyres, remain consistent in order to win. After the race I am now very relaxed.”

#77 Qi Pei-Wen/Zhou Hao-Wen are also Pan Delta drivers. “Our abilities are quite even, near the start we had a puncture and that lost us some time, but after that we were very consistenet.” Qi Pei-Wen said.

 

 

Class	Results	Number	Driver
A	1	11	Yuan Sheng-Ping/Li Yan-Han
	2	77	Qi Pui-Wen/Zhou Hao-Wen
	3	98	Eric Wong/Marc Webb/Anthony Chan/Maxx Ebenal
B	1	33	Liu Yi/Jiang Jian-Bin
	2	63	Zhong De-Hao/Huang Wen-He/Tan Jia-Jun
	3	92	Mai Qing-Long/Dai Tian-Wei/Mai Xiao-Gang
C	1	16	Wang Yuan/Lao Jian-Wei/Lai Bo-Ge
	2	93	Meng Ya-Chao/Wang Hao
	3	91	Zhu Li-Min/Su Si-Run/Wei Wen-Qiang/Su Min-Hua
D	1	82	Gao Lei-Yong/Hu Jia-Xin/Ouyang Zhen-Wei/Yu Fu-Hong
	2	83	Wang Lu/ Ling Yi-Hua
	3	-	-
OPEN	1	17	Xu Wei/Ling Kang
	2	7	Bill O Brien/Rich Pham/Peter Olson
	3	-	-

 

 

 

Time	Content
12:33	During the rolling start, #6 overtook before the red lights are turned off.
13:23	#82 and #28 hit each other at T9, #82 returns to the track but #28 goes into the sand trap. It is towed away at 13:27.
13:42	#17 overtakes #82 at T9, overtaking under yellow flag.
13:49	#86 continue driving after 45 minutes.
13:54	Pit garage, #22 is on fire. Two fire extinguishers are used to put out the fire.
14:29	Pit garage, driver Zhang Yao-Sheng enters the pit lane and causes an accident at #27 pit, 4 people are injured.
14:52	#88 goes into the sandtrap at T7, after it is towed out it cannot return to track. Under yellow flag, #33 overtakes #15, #10 overtakes #82 and #17 overtakes #10.
15:04	#36 retires.
15:17	#6 executes its drive-through penalty.

 

 

Number	Content
Infringement report no. 5	#6 conducts maintenance work while refueling. Penalized drive-through penalty.
Infringement report no. 6	#85 driver Zhang Yao-Sheng causes accident in the pit lane. All results of #85 cancelled from the race meeting.