Henry Ho puts Honda on pole as CTCC splits the top class
Henry Ho qualified the JAS Motorsport developed Dong Feng Honda Civic on pole position for the second round of the 2015 China Touring Car Championship, as the CTCC Committee made the decision ahead of the race to split the 1.6 turbo and 2.0 turbo classes into separate races this weekend.
The CTCC’s Super Production class has now been split into the Super Production class for 1.6 turbo cars, whose engines conform to the Super 2000 technical regulations, and the Super Production Cup class for those with 2.0 litre turbo power units, which effectively puts Shanghai VW 333 Racing’s Volkswagen Polos and Teamwork Motorsport’s Citroën C-Elysées into a separate class.
The Super Production class now consists of Changan Ford FRD, Dong Feng Honda Racing Team, Kia Racing and the new Haima Z1 Racing team.
In qualifying for this class, it was Honda who prevailed, with Henry Ho leading a Honda 1-2 ahead of team-mate Martin Xie, while Darryl O’Young qualified third in the Changan Ford Focus on his first appearance of the season.
Leo Yi Hong Li qualified fourth in the Kia K3S, with Andy Yan completing the top five in the class which now consists of just 13 cars following the split.
The new Haima Z1 Racing cars were off the pace for their debut, with He Zi Xian, Chen Xu and Andy Zheng occupying 11th to 13th positions, almost four seconds off the pace of the leading Honda of Ho.
In the new 2.0 class, Han Han put the Shanghai VW 333 Racing Polo on pole, just under three-tenths of a second ahead of Samuel Hsieh’s Citroën C-Elysée, with Wang Rue third. Also competing in the class to make up the numbers are the Volkswagen Scirocco Cup class, which occupied positions fourth to ninth, with Sunny Wong completing the top ten in the Teamwork Citroën.
The Super Production Class race takes place at 13:50 local time on Sunday.
