Photo: TCR Media

Jasper Thong takes hard-fought maiden win in Zhuhai

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Audi Hong Kong’s Jasper Thong won the first TCR Asia race in Zhuhai after a race-long fight with Team Engstler’s Kanthadee Kusiri. Huang Chu Han completed the podium in the Tianshi Racing Team Audi.

The start was smooth, as Thong stayed ahead of the field, with Kusiri slotting in behind him as Chen Wei An slipped down the order from third in his Audi RS 3 LMS due to a bad start. At the fourth corner Lai Wee Sing spun in his R Engineering Honda Civic TCR and slipped down the order.

A fierce fight immediately started between Thong and Kusiri, with Tin Sritrai close behind in his Honda. On the second lap, however, the Thai driver went off while trying to attack for second and subsequently lost several places, dropping out of the top ten.

Kusiri was therefore free to focus on the fight for the lead and, on lap five, he had overtaken his rival at the hairpin. On the following straight, though, the Audi Hong Kong teenager fought back to reclaim the lead, the battle also involving some rubbing. The fight allowed Audi’s Chen Eri An to get very close to the leading duo, but the Chinese driver outbraked himself at the first corner while trying to pull off a spectacular double overtake, only to end up in the gravel and lose a lot of time.

After that the focus switched to the midfield, as Sritrai was the fastest driver on track while charging through the field, jumping up to sixth with five laps to go and just managing to go up to fifth on the last lap. More drama was to come from the battle for the lead however, as SEAT’s Douglas Khoo, who appeared to have technical issues, got slightly in the way of the leader just on the last lap. A hard but fair battle ensued, the Audi driver managing to stay ahead despite a thrilling slide just at the last corner to take his and Audi’s maiden TCR win by little over a tenth of a second.

Kusiri came second despite driving a great race, with Huang Chu Han a distant third. Championship leader Diego Moran finished fourth in his Team Engstler Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR, although his advantage is now down to five points over Thong. Despite an early error, Sritrai bounced back to take fifth ahead of Abdul Kaathir’s Honda Civic TCR. Filipe de Souza came home seventh ahead of Lai Wee Sing’s Honda, as Alex Liu and Eric Kwong completed the podium in their SEATs.

Action will resume later today at 16:40 local time (10:40 CET).