FFC: Series Shanghai Saturday notes

Ford Formula Campus championship Saturday: Diana Rosario keeps shining

Qualifying: Rosario rockets to pole, Batalha shows good potential

The qualifying session for Ford Formula Campus (FFC) started at noon Saturday under clear weather at Shanghai Tianma Circuit (STC). Championship leader Diana Rosario got on track early and in lap 6 did a 1:08.361 to grab pole position, only slightly off FFC's STC laptime record set by Martin Cao last year (1:08.278). It was also Paulo Batalha's 2nd FFC race weekend and he has already shown good potential. Batalha set a 1:09.808 after only three sessions of practice before qualifying, yet qualified 2nd. Law Wai Lung qualified 3rd (1:10.166) and he looks poised to take the season runner up trophy. Rich Pham again showed good shape for the weekend by qualifying 4th and would likely had better performance but for a technical issue. Sin Ho Ming and Adriano Santo qualified 5th and 6th, respectively.

Round 1:

The 2nd last round of FFC started at 4:30 in the afternoon on Saturday. Diana Rosario was pole sitter while Paulo Batalha with right next to her. Law Wai Lung and Rich Pham started from 2nd row while Sin Ho Ming and Adriano Santo were on 3rd. As the red lights went off, Rosario had wheelspin on start and Batalha took the chance and ran in front of the fleet, then Rosario made aggressive block to Batalha going into T1 and led the rest of the race. Law passed Batalha in lap1 and Adriano Santo seemed struggling with technical problems and got overtaken by Rich Pham and Gomes in 2nd lap. In lap 6, Sunny Wong managed to overtake Santo and started a nose-to-tail battle with Daniel Gomes. In lap 8, the race got very exciting as 4 cars (Pham, Wong, Gomes and Santo) were competing very closely to each other, then Pham and Wong made bit of a gap to Gomes and Santo. In lap 10, Wong spun trying to pass Pham and fell to 7th when he rejoined the race.

In the end, Rosario won the race with a clear lead. Law came 2nd and Batalha 3rd. Gomes, Pham and Santo were 4th, 5th and 6th, respectively. The final round of FFC will start on Sunday.

-credit: frd