Photo: Procar.cc

Henry Ho scores victory for Honda in dramatic race in Guangdong

Henry Ho took his second win of the 2015 China Touring Car Championship at Guangdong, gaining the lead from Changan Ford’s Darryl O’Young on lap seven, and went on to take the chequered flag with a near ten second margin on Kia Racing’s Jason Zhang, with Ford’s Rainey He completing the podium.

Martin Xie had qualified on pole position for the Dong Feng Honda Racing team, but was demoted to 11th at the start, incurring a ten place penalty after an engine change which promoted O’Young to pole position for Changan Ford FRD Team, with Ho starting alongside on the front row.

O’Young held the lead at the start, while there was multi-car incident involving Haima Z1 Racing’s He Zi Xian, Kia’s Jim Ka To and Changan Ford’s Gao Hua Yang, with He and Gao out of the race, and the safety car deployed as their cars were recovered.

When the race resumed on lap six, Ho applied pressure to O’Young, taking the lead a lap later while the Hong Kong driver was now under attack from the Kia of Jason Zhang and the recovering Honda of Martin Xie. After briefly dropping to fourth behind the attacking pair, O’Young was able to fight his way back up to second, while Xie retired from the race with an engine malady.

Andy Zheng was a late retirement, spinning his Haima M6 out of ninth whilst battling the Kia of Larry Lin Le Feng, meaning a decimated field of eight cars would take the finish.

A late race puncture three corners from the finish for O’Young saw him drop from second to fourth, handing Zhang second and promoting team-mate Rainey He to the final spot on the podium, while the Ford of Andy Yan also suffered a technical problem on the final lap and dropped to seventh.

In the Super Production Cup class race, Wang Rue won the race for the Shanghai VW 333 Racing team in a race which was red flagged after a late race accident for Foshan APR Racing’s Neric Wei Chao Yin. His Scirocco suffered suspension failure with two laps to go, and though the safety car held the field and with Wang Rue actually retiring with an engine problem on lap 15, he picked up the win on countback with the result declared at the end of lap 14, with team-mate Jiang Tengyi finishing second and the wild card Volkswagen Golf GTI of Pun Jun Jin third, with just five cars classified at the end of the race.

The next round of the China Touring Car Championship takes place at the Shanghai International Circuit on September 28th, supporting the FIA World Touring Car Championship.