Tan loses ground in Championship
Porsche Carrera Cup driver, Yuey Tan rues a missed opportunity, after a 4th and 3rd place finish in Rounds 8 & 9 respectively at the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia. Practice on Friday started off with an upbeat atmosphere, finishing 2nd in category during both sessions and keeping the car in a position which the team was happy with. The weather was fantastic and the hot and dry conditions suited Tan well as he circulated the Sepang International Circuit. “Things started well over the race weekend,” commented Yuey Tan. “The target is a Class B championship and before the weekend, we were only seven points off the top so anything was possible!”
Qualifying was a different proposition for the thirty-two year old Singaporean, as the session started off being pretty wet though it did stop raining after the first few minutes of the session. Sepang is also notorious for drying up quickly and this is exactly what happened. “The weather played havoc with us in qualifying,” explained Tan. “It was very tricky conditions and to my surprise, the team made the call to change over to slicks half way through the session. They took an educated guess that in the last five minutes of the session, slicks will be the go. Well, they were right and I took pole in category for the first time this season so that was great! It was a good call by Minal our team engineer. That was close!” Unfortunately for Tan, luck was just about to run out as Round 8 at the Malaysian circuit spelt out trouble for the Havelock Racing driver, losing two spots to Alif Hamdan and Clearwater Racing’s guest driver, Max Twigg. On lap 9, two laps from the end, Tan made an overtaking manoeuvre on Twigg into turn 1 and as both cars got on the power, Twigg’s car bumped the rear end of Tan’s Porsche putting the latter into a spin and effectively ending a podium finish for the Singaporean.
“We were less than five minutes from the end of the race!” said Tan. “We were firmly in 2nd place in category and my car was a lot quicker than Twigg’s at the time. With the championship so close, it was extremely unfortunate to have this happen to me after all of the hard work I was not happy at all but that’s racing.” Round 9 was a race that was fairly uneventful for Tan, clinching a podium finish with 3rd after Hamdan and Twigg finished in front of him once again with Hamdan increasing his lead over Tan to a whopping 14 points, with three races to go this season.
“It’s not going to be easy to catch Alif!,” continued Tan. “He’s been so quick this season and has massively improved since I beat him in 2013. Only a mechanical problem can stop him now but there are still 60 points on offer so there is still time for a miracle! As for Francis, getting turned around in Round 8 cost me second place in the standings but we still have some battle left in us!” Current standings in category see Alif Hamdan still in the lead with 140 points, Francis Tjia in second place with 130 points and Yuey Tan in third with 126 points. Stay tuned for Round 10 of the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia which will be held next month at the Singapore F1 GP Weekend Sep 19-21.
