Malaysia’s Alex Yoong still has a lot of racing still left in him as he took the opening victory of the all-new Audi R8 LMS Cup, the first one-make championship in the world for Audi from pole-sitter Marchy Lee of Hong Kong. Taking the final podium spot was Amateur racer Jeffrey Lee of Pauian Archiland J-Fly Racing, the Chinese Taipei driver also clinching the opening victory in the category for non-professionals.Second in the Amateur classification was Eric Kwong of AK Racing Team, with Byron Tong of SMD in third.
The drama began even before the 17-lap race got underway, when rain began falling as the 16-strong field lined up on the grid. With a wet race declared just minutes before the start, the Audi R8 LMS Cup cars were shod with wet tyres for the first time. At the rolling start, Yoong got away brilliantly, pulling alongside Marchy Lee of Audi Ultra and getting by in a spray of water into Turn 1. Yoong set about pulling a gap from his rival, only to be reeled back in by a determined Lee lap after lap. By the flag though, Yoong had a margin of 1.459 seconds from Lee, who eased off in the closing stages having missed his chance to grab victory.
Jeffrey Lee got by Hong Kong’s Adderly Fong of Sino Vision Racing early on and was never to relinquish his position, despite Fong closing back up in the latter stages of the race. Lee crossed the line more than 2.3 seconds ahead of Fong, who is making his sportscar competition debut in the Audi R8 LMS Cup. Fastest lap of the race was set by Sun Zheng of Team Erdos Xinan, who finished 5th overall, on Lap 4.
Early victims of racing incidents were Aaron Kwok, who had been running strongly. Kwok had a coming together with PD GROUP Audi Team’s Sun Chao of China after Chao spun. Kwok recovered superbly, aggressively fighting back to cross the line 11th. The race finished early for Team Betterlife’s Wang Jian Wei when he was hit by Zhu Hu An of Team Zhe Jiang Aotong who tried to go through on the inside. Zhu was later handed a four-place grid penalty for Round 3 in Zhuhai in June. The top three were unanimous that their set of Michelin wet weather tyres would still be in good condition should the rain persist for Race 2.
No.
Comp
No.
Name
Class
Entrant
Time
1
8
Alex YOONG (MAL)
Audi GQ
36:12.942
2
1
Marchy LEE (HKG)
Audi Ultra
+1.459
3
7
Jeffrey LEE (TPE)
Am
Pauian Archiland
J-Fly Racing
+12.526
4
27
Adderly FONG (HKG)
Sino Vision Racing
+14.867
5
33
SUN Zheng (CHN)
Team Erdos Xinan
+22.825
6
23
Eric KWONG (HKG)
Am
AK Racing
+34.215
7
99
HUA Xia Wei (CHN)
Team Chengdu New Elements
+50.789
8
68
MAK Hing Tak (HKG)
KLM Team
+1:28.319
9
3
Byron TONG (HKG)
Am
SMD
+1:32.825
10
66
ZHANG Ran (CHN)
Am
Audi Castrol
+1:49.958
11
88
Aaron KWOK (HKG)
Am
Audi R8 LMS Cup Driver
+2:05.964
12
13
Adrian FU (HKG)
Am
FuSpeed Racing
1 Lap
13
75
Eric HSIANG (TPE)
Am
J-Fly Racing Team
1 Lap
DNF
9
WANG Jian Wei (CHN)
Team Betterlife
15 Laps
DNF
77
SUN Chao (CHN)
P D GROUP Audi Team
15 Laps
DNF
6
ZHU Hu An (CHN)
Team Zhe Jiang Aotong
16 Laps
(Am) Amateur Cup Competitor
Audi R8 LMS Cup Official Website at: www.audir8lmscup.com
