Photo: TCR Media

Kantadhee Kusiri takes pole position at Sepang season opener

Team Engstler’s Kantadhee Kusiri took pole position at Sepang in the TCR Asia curtain raiser. The Volkswagen driver has dominated the weekend so far, and was almost one second quicker than second-placed Lai Wee Sing in the R Engineering Honda Civic. Diego Moran was third in the other Team Engstler Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR.

In Q1 Kusiri was fastest from the word go, with local driver Mohamed Kaathir second in the R Engineering Honda ahead of Lai Wee Sing. Tong Siu Kau was the last man to make the cut to Q2, as Alex Liu Lic Ka was only able to take his SEAT León DSG to the track in the final minutes and managed no better than ninth, finishing ahead of Douglas Khoo’s Viper Racing León equipped with a sequential gearbox.

In the second segment of qualifying Lai led most of the session ahead of Moran and Kaathir. With two minutes to go, though, Kusiri clocked an impressive lap time of 2:17.359, which was nine tenths quicker than Lai’s best.

The Team Engstler driver will be on pole ahead of Lai and team-mate Moran. Kaathir was fourth ahead of Tin Sritrai’s Team Thailand Volkswagen and Audi Hong Kong’s Jasper Thong in his RS 3 LMS. Tong Siu Kau was seventh in the twin Phoenix Racing Audi, and will share the reversed-grid front row with Erick Kwong’s Elegant Racing SEAT.

Race 1 will start at 10:00 local time tomorrow (03:00 CET).