Sensor issues end Teamwork’s race in Guangdong prematurely

Teamwork Motorsport suffered a double DNF at the first round of the 2015 China Touring Car Championship, after running well within the top ten before a temperature sensor issue sidelined the Samuel Hsieh’s and Sunny Wong’s Citroën C-Elysées.

Starting from the back of the field after Wong was unable to set a time in qualifying, and with Samuel Hsieh starting from 11th, which was ninth in class with the Shanghai VW 333 Racing cars running a 2.0 turbo unit, both drivers made good progress in the equalising wet conditions, but Wong retired after nine laps with a sensor problem on his C-Elysée.

Hsieh worked his way as high as seventh, battling with the Kia of Jim Ka To for sixth, before the same sensor issues that affected his team-mate also forced Hsieh to stop and retire from the race just eight laps later.

“It’s disappointing to have a DNF in the opening round, but we did improve in terms of pace and proved we can compete with the manufacturer teams,” said Wong. “Now we have the major reliability issues to solve. We will work together as a team and try to rectify this before the next round at the Shanghai Formula 1 circuit in three weeks.”

Team-mate Hsieh added: “I was struggling with a braking imbalance in practice and qualifying, but the team did a great job to solve the problem just in time for the race, before another issue emerged. A temperature (sensor) issue forced me to retire just a few laps from the chequered flag. The team is now working at full speed to right the problem and I have full confidence that the car will be ready for Shanghai.”