It was a rough ride to victory for FAW T2 Motorsport’s Will Bamber who seized a lights-to-flag victory in Round 5 at Bangsaen with a fine exhibition of focused driving as the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia made its debut on one of the most unforgiving tracks seen so far this season.
The difficulty of this tough circuit was clear during the practice and qualifying sessions, with seven red flags flown as drivers struggled to learn the track, a majority of which were racing the trap-filled circuit for the first time.
But Bamber proved a quick study, earning P1 with a 1:36.918 lap-time during the qualifiers earlier on Saturday morning with two lightning lap times that gave him a huge advantage on the narrow track. Team Formax’s Chris van der Drift clocked an equally impressive 1:37.165 lap to earn P2, while Team StarChase’s Philip Hamprecht finished out the top 3 grid slots in P3 with a 1:37.200 lap.
From the first turn, van der Drift was hounding Bamber’s bumper, giving no room for error and letting the race leader know that a single mistake will cost him his lead. But despite the advances from van der Drift, Bamber kept a cool confidence, sticking expertly to his race lines and refusing to give any room for van der Drift to attempt a pass while gradually gaining breathing space.
Meanwhile, Hamprecht was quick to put space between him and championship table leader Martin Ragginger of Team Porsche Holding, who executed a charging start from P5 to overtake P4 driver Cui Yue of Team Jebsen.
It was a short race for Team C&D’s Yuan Bo, who struck misfortune early on in the race oversteering in the third lap and spinning, leaving him unable to finish just 5 minutes into the race.
Just as Hamprecht was getting ready to approach van der Drift, potentially taking some of the pressure off of Bamber, the safety car was called out after Cui Yue, trying to avoid a slower Pro-Am driver, was forced into turn 15 and sent sliding into a barrier. Clearly ruffled, Cui Yue was then forced retire from one of his strongest race performances so far this year.
With the safety car out for just one lap, Bamber’s hard earned pocket of comfort was gone, putting van der Drift right back on his bumper with 8 laps to go. As the pack bunched back up, Ragginger saw a second wind, immediately applying pressure to Hamprecht as he looked to pry the podium position from the younger driver.
Further back, Absolute Racing’s Tanart Sathienthirakul tussled with Porsche China Junior Andrew Tang in the final moments of the race while Force Asia Racing’s Akash Niel Nandy was locked in contention with Porsche China Junior Team’s Zhang Dasheng.
With one lap to go, van der Drift made a final push, but was deftly shutout by Bamber, who narrowly finished the race fractions of a second ahead of van der Drift. Hamprecht cruised into third place to earn his first podium of the season.
“It was a fantastic race for us, getting a good start which helped us stay ahead before turn 2. Then after that it was about keeping it under control but also pressing on. You saw the times were faster than qualifying even. One mistake and it could have gone wrong really quickly. But I had a good jump in the beginning in terms of gap to Chris at the start and he came on super strong after the safety car at the end there,” Will Bamber said during the press conference after the race.
Ragginger still commands the championship table with 102 points, while one point now seperates second and third place, with van der Drift ahead of Bamber at 96 and 95 points respectively.
The rivalry between Pro-Am driver Evan Chen of Kamlung Racing and Team Jebsen’s Yuey Tan took a new twist in Round 5 after the drivers earned P1 and P2 positions respectively during qualifiers. Tan had a blazing start, streaking through the green lights to instantly ride onto Chen, followed closely behind P3 starter Francis Tjia of OpenRoad Racing.
Chen survived the first turn rumble but was soon facing a looming challenge from Tan, who managed to overtake him after a close clustered bump-up between the Pro-Am pack.
It was then a matter of keeping the tenacious young Chen, racing for this first time in his career on a street track, at bay. Tan strong handle on the track was made evident as the race progressed, with his gap on Chen steadily increasing.
Meanwhile OpenRoad Racing’s Francis Tjia, starting in P3, found himself comfortably occupying the space between the Pro-Am race leaders and the rest of the pack, enjoying clean space on both the front and back.
The safety car shook up the standings however, eliminating Tan’s lead and putting Tjia right up front with the race leaders as the action reset.
From then on it was a fearsome bumper to bumper fight between Tan and Chen. A small error by Tan going into a soft turn with just 2 laps to go saw the only window open for Chen, but Tan managed to quickly recover and kept a steel grip on first place. Tjia then was on the back of the leaders, occupying Chen’s attention while Tan greeted the checkered flag for a tension-filled victory.
“We started our position behind Evan running on the start, went into turn 2, unfortunately we all bunched up and Francis [Tjia] gave me a little tap. He came running up the hill and for a minute I thought he was going to get us. Luckily, one of us had to pull out and in the end he gave way, I pushed really, really hard before the safety car and we made a little bit of a gap. I was not please the safety car came out, it kind of affected the rhythm. But after that we pushed hard and [Evan Chen] really pushed me to the end,” Tan, glowing from his victory, said in the press conference interview following his win.
Drivers in the series face one more race (Round 6) on Sunday.
