Tan endures difficult weekend of bad luck
In what was one of the least profitable weekends of the 2013 season, Yuey Tan scored a 5th and 3rd place in category, currently placing him 3rd in the championship.
The Porsche Carrera Cup Asia headed to Ordos, Inner Mongolia for rounds 6 & 7 of the 2013 season with Tan a minute gap ahead of 3rd place Li Chao.
The race weekend began in practice 1 with a problem in the gearbox mechanism, that disallowed the gear shifter from moving though fortunately, there was no damage to the gearbox itself. Things however started to improve in the 2nd practice session, with Tan going 3rd quickest in his category behind Perfetti and Hamdan ahead of him.
Qualifying was more of the same, with the car a lot better and the understeer, unseen during this point during Saturday’s session. Tan set a time 3rd quickest once again behind the pair of Perfetti and Hamdan.
“There was some positives coming out of practice and although the car’s sweet spot was not found yet, there was valuable data gained understanding the Ordos circuit a little better. This made for a good qualifying setup and we actually got the quickest lap on the 2nd flying lap which is where we thought the window would be. We were happy with that result.” Things were well placed for race 1 however, lap 1 was the start of misfortune for the Singaporean with a first lap T11 incident that saw fellow competitor, Li Chao lock up and spear into Tan’s rear left wheel and body.
“It was a disappointing thing to happen for sure,” said Tan. “Things were going pretty good at first but then Li Chao lost control and speared into me, damaging the rear subframe and basically kicking the wheels out of stead. We lost all performance in the car.”
After the two made contact, Tan dropped down to the very end of the grid after handling problems caused the car to spoon. Li Chao drove on collecting valuable points and leapfrogging Tan in the category B championship, finishing 2nd while Tan fought back hard finishing in 5th and grabbing valuable points.
“These things happened,” reflected Tan. I know Li Chao and he’s a good guy and a fair sportsmen. I think as long as its a one off, we need to focus on the rest of the season and try and get more points then our competitors!”
Race 2 saw Tan take 3rd in category and a fifth podium finish during the 2013 season after a hard fought race pushing in front of quick Singaporean, Ringo Chong after being held up at the start of the race due to contact between fellow mates Ho Pin Tung and Rodolfo Avila. This brings Tan to a career total of 18 podium finishes in Porsche’s on all occasions.
Watch Tan back in action, next in South Korea three weeks from now from August 2-4 at the all new Autopia International Circuit.
