AFR: Series Zhuhai race report

AFR non-Championship: Ferigutti claimed the top spot

The AFR non-Championship round 2 started at 4:50 p.m. under cloudy weather and featured a dramatic start. Luca Ferigutti (Asia Racing Team) grabbed his first ever single-seater winner trophy, with his teammate Sandy Stuvik 2nd and Mun Shien Chang, another teenage driver from Champ Motorsport, capturing 3rd.

The cars lined-up at grid after warm-up lap. Sandy Stuvik and his teammate Luca Ferigutti stood side-by-side on the front row. Shanqi Zhang &Tin Sritrai on 2nd row while Rainey He & Victor Yung occupying 3rd. As the lights went off, Ferrigutti got off to a good start, leading the fleet to Turn 1 while pole-sitter Sandy Stuvik suffered wheel-spin during start and lost his position. Car No.9 Zhicong Li did a bravo start, he overtook 4 cars when entering T1 and moved to position 5 from P9. Accident happened at T1, several cars hard breaked & spun, smoky scene. Red flag was shown & safety car was sent. Three cars had to retire from the race: Rainey He, Samin Briceno and Sunny Wong.

Lap 1, Car No.3 overtook 2 cars under red and took 30 seconds penalty afterwards, while car No. 8 suffered clutch problem & jump-started and received 30 seconds' penalty.

The cars came back to the grid, as Ferigutti on lead, Tin Sritrai 2nd, Shanqi Zhang 3rd and pole-sitter Stuvik fell to 4th. The fleet lined-up and rolling started. Safety Car brought the gaps closer and a spectacular race was certainly on the way. Shanqi Zhang overtook Sritrai after 1 lap. Chang, the Malaysian, overtook his teammate Victor Yung at restart lap.

Lap 5, Stuvik successfully passed his teammate Sritrai and moved to 3rd. Shanqi Zhang started to close the gap aggressively with lead car Ferigutti and Stuvik stayed back waited for his opportunity to overtake Zhang.

Lap 7, Top 3 cars started a good fight, Zhang closed the gap to 0.7 seconds while Ferigutti did a good job defending his lead; Stuvik, on the other hand, shortened the time-difference to less than half seconds with Zhang. The 10-lap race didn't left Zhang and Stuvik enough time to overtake and Ferigutti, Zhang, Stuvik, Sritrai, Chang and Zhicong Li were top 6 finishers.

According to the official result after all the penalties, Ferigutti won with Stuvik 2nd and Chang 3rd in International Class. As for the Asian class, Stuvik, Chang and Zhicong Li were top 3.

The first points race of AFR will return ZIC with the very popular China Touring Car Championship (CTCC) weekend in late May.

-source: frd