Photo: TCR Media

Tin Sritrai wins wet Race 2 in Zhuhai for Team Thailand

Tin Sritrai made the most out of a cracking start to take his first win of the 2017 TCR Asia Season. The Thai driver came home ahead of Volkswagen’s Filipe de Souza, who came second after an off late in the race. Lai Wee Sing completed the podium in the R Engineering Honda Civic TCR.

At the start Sritrai took the lead after a lighting start, ahead of Audi’s Huang Chu Han and Chen Wei An, although the latter quickly started losing places on the wet track. During a fight with Lai Wee Sing, Chen made a mistake and went off, slipping down the order on lap four.

Meanwhile Da Souza was on a mission and made a great move at Turn 1, overtaking both Lai and Kanthadee Kusiri’s Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR, therefore jumping up to third and starting to close the gap on second-placed Huang. Lai and Kusiri started an entertaining fight, as the Volkswagen driver attacked the Honda very cleanly, making attempts at almost every corner.

On lap 9 Da Souza managed to pass Huang for second and launched himself in the chase of Sritrai, who had a considerable margin, but also a windscreen wipers issue, as they appeared not to work. Despite having the same problem, Lai closed the gap with Huang and overtook him for third. As Da Souza was getting ready to attack Sritrai with two laps to go, the Macanese driver went straight through the gravel and lost a considerable amount of time.

As a result, Da Souza emerged from his off just inches ahead of Lai, Huang and Kusiri. At the last corner on the last lap Huang went very wide, handing Kusiri fourth place and ending up fifth.

Sritrai won the race ahead of Da Souza, Lai, Kusiri and Huang. Abdul Kaathir was sixth in the R Engineering Honda Civic TCR, ahead of Chen and championship leader Diego Moran. Eric Kwong finished ninth in his SEAT, ahead of stable-mate Douglas Khoo.

Moran still leads the championship, although his advantage over second-placed Kusiri is down to four points, with race winner Tin Sritrai a further point adrift. Lai is fourth, 12 points behind the leader and two ahead of Race 1 winner Jasper Thong, who ended up outside the points in the wet in his Audi RS 3 LMS.