Sepang brings a run of bad luck
Singaporean race driver, Yuey Tan travelled to the Sepang International Circuit to compete in rounds 7 & 8 of the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia.
The PCCA race weekend over the Merdaka holiday in Malaysia saw practice run on Thursday, qualifying on Friday, and then race day on the Sunday as Malaysia’s famous 12 hour endurance race was between qualifying and race day.
Practice 1 & 2 saw the Dorr McElrea Racing team show some good pace, finishing 3rd and 2nd respectively in category.
“Thursday’s practice went well,” said a confident Tan at the time. “Practice 1 saw a small problem with the brake pad on the front left, so we managed to puncture a tyre. Though we got going again and were happy with the practice sessions.” Like practice, qualifying also went like clockwork, Tan holding the category pole position from the rest of the field till some 30 seconds away from the end of the session. In his place was then Francis Tjia, pipping Tan to the pole by a mere 0.120 of a second.
“Was a great lap by Francis. To be honest with you, I thought that I already had it in the bag! Not quite. Great qualifying and was really exciting.”
Though from here, things were just about to take a turn for the worse.
The number 5 car of Yuey Tan made a decent start in race 1, only to come around into T2 to see a big accident involving Edigio Perfetti and Zhang Da Shen.
“It was an unfortunate circumstance. Both of the guys are cool, but sometimes things go wrong in motor racing and this time around, we got collected up in the mayhem. It was of course not idea but I’m glad that all of us are safe.”
After the incident, Tan still managed to get the car running again, rejoining the tail of the field and overtaking some seven cars on the way up to finish 5th in category.
“Podiums were the target this weekend, but unfortunately we didn’t get there. Though we made the maximum out of a bad situation so for that, we are pretty happy with race 1.”
Race 2 however was a whole different story. Tan was forced into a battle with John Shen, that saw the experienced Shen brake test Tan on many areas of the circuit, making it impossible for the McElrea Racing car to overtake, on the line of dangerous driving. The battle ended with John Shen hitting Tan into the entry of T5 at high speed, with Adrian Da Silva just missing Tan as the Singaporean spun out at 180km/h.
“I was very unimpressed with John after the race had finished. He was driving without much etiquette and after I finally got past him, it cost me my race as he punted me off. For the many laps I was behind him, I did my upmost not to punt him off but there you have it. Valuable points lost again for the championship. Doesn’t make me happy.”
Once the car had spun out, Tan lost drive and had to DNF from the race.
“Things often can change quickly in motor racing and this just wasn’t our weekend,” concluded Tan.
Watch the number 5 Dorr McElrea Racing car compete in 2 and a half weeks time, at the Singapore Formula 1 GP Weekend on Sep 21-23.
