Malaysian driver Nabil Jeffri claimed the win in the most exciting race of the JK Racing Asia Series Season so far at the Paul Ricard Circuit today. Jeffri of Eurointernational crossed the line ahead of Meritus.GP driver Ernie Van Der Walt and Tan Wei Ron who claimed third for Eurointernational in Round 5 held this morning. Tan had a brilliant start moving up to second from fourth on the first lap with Jeffri following him close behind but Jeffri found a way past to claim second.
At the same time, pole sitter Afiq Yazid was given a drive through penalty for being out of position at the start, which he served on the third lap dropping him down to the end of the pack. He then fought all the way throughout the race to finish in ninth. This gave Jeffri the lead, which he held all the way to the chequered flag.
Jeffri was elated with the win citing, “Its very prestigious to be here at Paul Ricard where all the great drivers have been before me and on the same podium, so its very prestigious winning here”. Behind him the fight continued between Tan, his teammate Aston Hare and Van Der Walt. The trio put on a good show at the start of the race with the South African duo of Van Der Walt and Hare battling for third. Van Der Walt found an opening taking Hare on lap three before beginning to bear down on Tan.
The duo fought for a few laps before Van Der Walt found a way past taking second on lap seven. Tan meanwhile was happy with his first podium finish despite losing second place to Van Der Walt. Behind them, Hare maintained a steady pace with his Eurointernational teammate Irfan Ilyas close behind in fifth where they remained throughout the race.
It was the pack of four behind them that provided the most excitement throughout the race, battling for sixth were the three US Formula Project drivers, with Aidan Wright of Meritus GP in the mix. Sean Walkinshaw, Wright, Aditya Patel and Chris Vlock changed positions, used the curbs and even parts of the grass, drove nose to tail with one another from the midway point of the race right to the chequered flag providing some hair raising moments. In the end, Walkinshaw maintained his hard fought sixth place followed by Wright, Patel and a recovering Yazid, who managed to fight his way up from last, with Vlock in tenth.
Patel will start the next race in ninth amongst the same group again, and is looking forward to another great outing. “It should be good fun. Everybody is pretty quick and I need to improve my pace a bit so if I can gain a few places at the start that will be great but then everybody is really quick” he ended with a great smile. Hiqmar Danial Hidzir and his Eurasia Motorsport teammate, Josh Raneri, made contact at turn 9 ending Raneri’s race with Hidzir dropping down the grid. He finished the race in eleventh ahead of Toby Earle, who had an engine change yesterday missing the Qualifying session and having to start at the end of the pack. French karting driver, Bizalion Charly gained good experience with the Mahara team running a clean race finishing thirteenth in his first outing.
