Yuey Tan: We were lucky to survive the Singapore GP!
Singaporean race driver, Yuey Tan took the streets of Singapore for the last round of the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia.
The PCCA has always been the support category for Formula One, enjoying a worldwide deal with the F1 organisation and supporting the Singapore, Shanghai and Malaysia F1 weekends with the Asian edition of the Carrera Cup. It was round 10 on the street circuit for the one make series in what was to be a messy race for the 24 runners.
The day before, Tan qualified his Dorr McElrea Racing Porsche 4th in category, and 15th overall for his home race in what was a poor qualifying session for him. “We didn’t get to do a proper flying lap in qualifying which was very disappointing,” said Tan. “Though it didn’t count till the chequered flag so I continued to remain positive.” Raceday though, brought scenarios that could not have been planned for.
With much incident over the first lap, Tan dropped several places with his good friend and Jebsen driver, Rodolfo Avila also taking a spin and dropping near the back of the field. This incident caused Tan to come to a complete stop, after diving into T10 pass the Supreme Court.
“That was a very close incident that made me come to a complete stop and then negotiate slowly through the stationery field of cars!” explained Tan. “As I was hard on the brakes and I saw them parked ahead in the middle of the circuit, I hit the brakes hard but needed to make sure they wouldn’t lock up. I believe from some ridiculous speeds, we came to a standstill with some 40 cm of a gap to the next car to spare.”
Thinking that was close, more chaos was about to unfold on turn 14. As Tan arrived at T14, Jebsen’s Avila took the inside line and overtook Alif Hamdan. Feeling optimistic, Tan stuck right on the rear bumper of Avila and followed him through and exited successful still behind the Jebsen car. Side by side with Hamdan, the Malaysian steered right into Tan’s car while taking evasive action. This unfortunately resulted in Hamdan going off and hitting the outside wall between turns 10 and 11 on multiple occasions, Tan sustaining minimal damage and carrying on.
“It was an unfortunate racing incident for Alif and I,” said Tan. “As he moved over, I put the brake on and his rear end hit my front, putting him into a spin! Then he hit the wall and came bouncing off onto the circuit again, making it a bit of a guessing game. It was a difficult moment.”
The safety car was deployed as a caution to clear the circuit of debris of Hamdans Porsche, though the safety car ran around the circuit for a further six laps after the incident.
“These are the laps that really hurt us in the race!” continued Tan. “We opted to start on a lower pressure and never really got the car to heat up. The best of the car was never realised and this was a little disappointing as well. Minal, McElrea Racing and EKS gave me a fantastic car. It just never went to temperature.”
The safety car re-entered the pit lane on lap 8 and the Porsche race cars were racing again. Understeer was evident for most of the Porsche’s on track for the first lap, with the drivers needing to work tyre temperature to an optimum.
Tan crossed the chequered flag 4th in class and 11th overall, in what wasn’t the best of race results or race entertainment in 2013.
“The end of the race was fairly uneventful after the safety car as I maintained speed to reach the chequered flag. We managed to finish in front of Singapore’s Ringo Chong which was also good. He’s a good driver and to be amongst the worlds elite is pretty cool.”
Watch Yuey Tan as he tries to finish 2nd in his category championship, in Shanghai on October 25th to 27th.
