15 Dec 2014 Circuit Hero 500km Race and ZIC Superbike 3 Hours Endurance Race qualifying

13 December 2014, this is a sunny and clear day at Zhuhai International Circuit, albeit with low temperatures, just 12 degrees C in the morning. Today also welcomes a group of racing drivers to the circuit to take part in the Circuit Hero 500km Race and ZIC Superbike 3 Hours Endurance Race practice and qualifying sessions.

According to the regulations, both set of participants will get an hour's free practice in the morning before the 20 minutes qualifying session in the afternoon. In order to better prepare for the race, all the participants enthusiastically take part in the practices, trying to optimize the set up for their machines.

Endurance racing greatly differs from sprint racing. Drivers must consider the strategy over the 3 hours race period. They have to look after fuel consumption, tyre wear, brake wear and driver changes, making compromises in certain areas in order to minimize the number of pit stops needed. The physical demands on a driver is very high as well and the regulations make it very clear that the same driver is not allowed to drive for more than 45 minutes and he must then rest for a minimum of 15 minutes. The team must therefore carefully determines the race strategy and even take in all kinds of unexpected situations (e.g. the appearance of the safety car) to have a good chance of winning.

For the ZIC Superbike 3 Hours Endurance Race, there are 13 entrants.2011 and 2012 winner, #71 Dan Kruger will partner with one of his 2012 winning partner Karl Roe. Unfortunately his fierce rival Huang Shi-Zhao is not involved in this year's race and therefore his biggest challenge will come from the Chow Ho-Wan/Hu Zhao-Neng team up.

At the end of qualifying, #71 Dan Kruger/Karl Roe expectedly set the best time of 1:38.090 to secure pole position. #15 Chow Ho Wan/Hu Zhao-Neng takes second place with 1:41.260. In third place are Ou Yang Fu/Deng Yuan Hong with a 1:41.273. At the moment it looks like Dan Kruger may become the first three times winner of the ZIC Superbike 3 Hours Endurance race.

Circuit Hero 500km Race has a total of 34 entrants and are divided into 5 different classes based on engine capacity. The most eye-catching is the open class where D2 Racing's Mercedes SLS AMG, Ferrari 458 and two Radicals are entered. In the practice session, #2 Guo Guo-Shin/Huang Xi-Zhan set a 1:39.7 best lap in their Mercedes SLS AMG, 0.9 second faster than the #71 Ferrari 458 of Xu Wei/Tommy Chan. Last year's race winner Jon Flinn partners Troy Williams this year in a Radical SR1 and they are third fastest.

In the qualifying session held in the afternoon, #2 Guo Guo Shin/Huang Xi-Zhan power their Mercedes SLS AMG to a 1:36.909 fastest lap to take pole position. A full two seconds faster than the #71 Xu Wei/Tommy Chan Ferrari 458 which is second. In class A, Huang Yi-Bo/Chen Qi-Ming/Robert Webb's Lotus Exige takes third place overall with 1:43.244. Third in open class goes to #12 Flinn/Williams Radical. In class B, #216 Wayne Shen/Mike's Renault Clio leads with a 1:57.254 and is 18th overall. In class C, #16 Li Zuo-Jie/Gary Sham/He Shi-Jie/Xu Lei-Ye takes the fastest time of 2:01.261 in a Honda EK.

The race also attracted 9 Sciroccos to enter. The Scirocco has been entered in various endurance races around the world and it is no problem for the machine to do a long distance race. The fastest is the #99 car driven by Carlo Piero Mantori/Markus Engel/Alessandro Miraglia, their time is 1:50.644.

Qualifying maybe the forte for the powerful GT machines like the Mercedes SLS AMG and Ferrari 458, but GT cars are generally heavier, therefore requiring more fuel, has a higher rate of brake and tyre wear, compared with the Radicals and Caterham. They may require more pit stops to go through a race. So no one can be certain of the race winner until the end of the race.

ZIC Superbike 3 Hours Endurance Race will start at 08:45 on Sunday, 14 December 2014 while the Circuit Hero 500km Race will commence at 14:15 on the same date. The race winner will be determined by the team that completes the longest distance within the 3 hours race time.