China TCC: Changan Ford Zhuhai Saturday report

Changan Ford racing team: Nice surprises even under big pressure

Changan Ford racing team managed to overcome the pressure from the new compensation weight and brought a decent team grid for CTCC Sunday race. Martin Cao, the 17 year-old, will start from pole position on Sunday.

Changan Ford racing team is facing a "New Weight" this time. According to FASC's new weight compensation regulation valid this season, each Focus racing car has to take an extra 40kg compensational weight, what makes the situation even worse is that other teams will enjoy the race with 10kg off their shoulders. Thus, the Focus will be 50kg heavier than its competitors. For Tengyi Jiang, as winner from last race, he has to take another 40kg, which is to say that Tengyi's car will be 90kg heavier than the cars from other teams. Other than communicating and negotiating with FASC, the team is also putting a lot of effort on how to balance the extra burden.

ZIC took a big shower on Saturday morning and the qualifying session of 2000cc was at 2:50 in the afternoon. The weather turned better at noon and the track was almost dry when the qualifying started. Most of the 2000cc drivers chose slick tires and the average lap time was at least 3 seconds' faster than the result from practice in the morning. Changan Ford racing team executed perfectly again the qualify strategy from last race, to get on track and warm up first, then head back to pit for tire-change by mid- stage of the session. The extra weight did drag the speed down as the FOCUS drivers stayed at the middle of the pack for the first several laps, which was not at all the Changan Ford style. Martin Cao was the only FOCUS driver ranked top 3 before lap5. After the tire-change, Rainey immediately set a lap 3 sec's faster and moved into top 3 league. Tengyi, along with extra weight which was much heavier than himself, finished the session with a decent 9th; Martin Cao set the best lap of the day (1:50.975) right after tire-change while Andy Yan qualified 13th, left us reason to expect his signature style of fighting back. In the end, Martin grabbed pole, with Rainey 5th and Tengyi 9th.

The race of 2000cc will start at 2:30 on Sunday afternoon. The team will update you more by then.

-source: frd