Team NZ Motorsport wrap up Asian Le Mans Sprint title

Team NZ Motorsport wrapped up the Asian Le Mans Sprint Cup 2017 at Sepang International Circuit last weekend. A combination of top driving from Graeme Dowsett and John Curran (#77 Porsche 997 GT3 Cup ) and teamwork saw them win both the 1-hour races that comprised the third and final round. The double victory gave them the GT Cup driver and team titles.

Having won both titles last season the target for the weekend was to defend and win again.

Qualifying proved to be tight with the top three contenders covered by little more than a second. Dowsett took pole for race one while in the second qualifying session Curran’s ‘flying’ lap was interrupted by a red flag with the team having to settle for second fastest for race two.

Over-shooting the first turn dropped Dowsett down the field in the first race but a strong recovery gave the team the lead and eventually their fourth win from five races. This meant the team only had to finish the second and final race to give them the two titles. Not prepared to settle for minor places, Curran immediately took the lead before handing the car over to Dowsett with a healthy cushion mid-race. A second victory for the round confirm both driver and team titles.

“Saturday, P1 in class and P3 overall was special and we were extremely lucky to have Earl Bamber as race engineer on that day,” commented Curran. “I really struggled with the heat on the Saturday and a slippery track. Sunday was just as special, having done a poor job qualifying the car in my qualifying session on the Saturday morning I was up to P1 in class exiting Turn 1 and I put my head down and built up a good lead for the handover to Graeme.”

“Firstly I would like to congratulate the PAS Macau team, they did an excellent job this weekend, they did improvements throughout the season and gave us a lot of competition and were really fun to drive with.” Commented Dowsett. “The car had excellent pace and thanks to crew they did an excellent job and the whole weekend was seamless, it was really good and well done to the crew.”