China TCC: Ford Shanghai summary

CTCC Race 3: Rainey He recoups 1st place

Changan Ford Racing Team leading the points

Saturday qualifying was indeed a close fight, with everybody expecting an exciting race from the 2000cc class. The 32-lap race with 19 cars on the grid was very intense, with the winning result changed after Ken Look (team LF) received a 10 second penalty due to car contact during the last lap, resulting in the winner's trophy for CTCC Race 3 going to Rainey He (Changan Ford Racing Team). Ken Look and Billy Zeng captured 2nd and 3rd, respectively. Tengyi Jiang did a good job by starting from 9th to finish 4th. After this weekend's results, Changan Ford Racing team continues to hold the team winner title.

The race started at 2:45 p.m., with Lo Kai Fai and Lo Ka Chun leading the race for the first few laps and Martin Cao, the young driver with exceptionally good speed, following in 3rd with two other Ford Focus cars closely behind. Unfortunately, Cao retired from the race due to mechanical issues and passed the lead to another driver. Later, Andy Yan, the dark horse of the last race, made contact with Huang Chuhan's car and veered into the runoff area, retiring from the race. As a result, the safety car was sent out and moved the team's hopes to Rainey He and Tengyi Jiang.

The competition restarted when the safety car left the track. Tengyi Jiang managed to move up from 9th to 5th. Ken Look, one of the most experienced drivers in the class, overtook several cars and took the lead with Rainey He following very closely behind and Billy Zeng in 3rd. Meanwhile, Lo Ka Chun was penalized and forced to end his race early. In lap 31, Rainey He managed to overtake Ken Look with a pass in T1, but Ken Look's car hit He's rear bumper and Rainey He had to drift out wide in T1 to keep his car on the track. As a result, Ken Look took back his lead and clearly this "contact" needed further discussion. The race result was changed after an arbitration meeting, with Rainey He being awarded the winner's trophy for CTCC race 3. Ken Look took the penalty and settled for 2nd. Billy Zeng and Tengyi Jiang were 3rd and 4th, respectively. Changan Ford Racing Team has now enjoyed two back-to-back wins and is now leading the team points table. Rainey He is leading the driver points standings by 1 point.

Rainey He said after the race:"My teammates passed me when the race started. I believe that our teamwork is getting better race by race, so when I see my teammates running in front of me, I just try to slow down a little and give them a chance to have a clear lead. Ken Look was very fast and I followed him for several laps. I managed to overtake him in the end of the straight, but didn't do a good job to cover my line, so our cars had some contact." Rainey He was informed about the arbitration decision and he was very happy with his win.

Ford project director Paul Hui said:"We are very happy about the qualifying result putting our cars in a very positive position to start the race. We were trying to limit the weight penalty and we are very confident that we would have a definite tire performance advantage over our competitions when the race going into the later stage. The only work we have to do is to make sure we keep our cars in a striking distance with the lead cars.

We can see that Rainey was gaining on the lead car very quickly in the late stage of the race because of the clear tire advantage. He passed the lead car clearly and deserved the first place without a doubt. I think FASC and the steward panel did a very good decision after reviewed the incident carefully. We will be moving to BJ for the next race in three weeks' time. I am very positive in maintaining this strong and dominating position to secure good Team Championship result, but also the team will start working as one single unit for the next common goal - the driver Championship."

-credit: frd