Team NZ Motorsport enjoyed a winning start in the Asian Le Mans Sprint Cup, after emerging from Sunday’s’s hectic 1-hour race at Sepang International Circuit with victory in the GT Cup.
The Asian Le Mans Sprint Cup is a brand new initiative from the ACO, the organisers of the Asian Le Mans Series – and judging by the weekend’s action it’s set to become a big hit. Reserved for LMP3, CN and GT Cup category cars it’s also contested exclusively by ‘Bronze’ and ‘Silver’ level drivers.
For Team NZ those metrics really checked all the boxes – as did the late May starting point for the new series thanks to the fact they had to rejig their 2016 programme following the Bathurst 12 Hour in February which, while netting a stunning podium finish, also necessitated a major post race overhaul for our #77 Porsche 997 GT3 Cup.
It was a race against time to be on track in Sepang last weekend and entry was only confirmed once the car was built up again, loaded and exact shipping schedule arranged.
Race 1, held Saturday afternoon, saw John Curran make an excellent start and move quickly up from the back of the grid and into P2 within just half a lap, before going one better and taking the GT Cup lead on the second lap.
From there on Curran and later co-driver Graeme Dowsett were never out of the battle for the top two positions until a technical fault sidelined the car during the closing laps of the race. It was an agonising way to end the afternoon after an awful lot of hard work from everyone coupled to superb race pace and slick work by the crew, but there was still Race 2 coming up the next day and time to chase a podium.
Sunday’s second and final race of the inaugural weekend saw the team start from fourth slot on the grid. Curran quickly made up places at the start and was soon battling for P1 with the fastest of the trio of Lotus cars in this race, the #28 Evora driven during the opening stint by professional driver Dominic Ang; Malaysian’s former double winner of the Sepang 12 Hours.
“The strategy in Race 2 in order to catch the fastest Lotus as Dominic [Ang] was going to be out for the first stint,” commented Curran. ” So even though Dominic was going to be starting ahead of us the plan was to keep him not too far ahead and manage the gap so that Graeme who is a couple of seconds a lap faster than the other driver in that Lotus could then catch him during his stint. So really if I could keep Dominic in sight then Graeme could seal the deal.
“As it turned out I think Dominic seemed to have technical issues as he was very fast some laps and slower some other laps. So I passed him like he was stopped and a lap later he’s sitting right on my rear bumper. So that was the strategy and of course to keep it all on track.”
Dowsett got the job done superbly and received the #77 car at the pitstop with only a slender small deficit to Antony Chan, who was now in the #28 car. The Team NZ driver dug in, pulled out PBs lap times, passed the race leader, and by the time the checkered flag was waved at the end of 1 hour of racing, which equated to 26 laps, he had eased out a 8.808 second cushion at the front as he gunned the black and silver Porsche across the line to sheer delight from our pitwall.
“It was an excellent result to get first place,” commented Dowsett. “I’m very happy to get this, the car was good, the team did a really good job and I think a few other people were a bit surprised we could pull through with a win after having so little time on track.”
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