After sorting out some last minute regulation interpretation issues, the team made some final adjustments to the 2014 Changan Ford New Focus, did some runnings during the Thursday open practice and the Saturday official practice sessions, The Changan Ford drivers qualified top four in wet condition. Darryl O’Young, Martin Xie and Rainey He eventually finished the race 2, 3 and 4 and captured the Round 1 Team Championship for the year.

Qualifying, Saturday

Due to the on and off rain during the day, the team decided to send all four cars out when the session started with only drizzles. Rainey He was struggling slightly with his wet set up and was two seconds off the pace from Andy Yan, whose 1.34.7 was good enough to take the top position at the moment. Red flag came out only after 8 minutes of running. The team came back for fresh tires and went out 10 minutes later. The Changan Ford drivers improved their times and took all four top spots. Andy Yan won the pole with a time of 1.33.568 with his teammates only less than a second behind him. Rainey He, Darryl O’Young and Martin Xie will start 2nd, 3rd and 4th behind him.

Race, Sunday

After reviewing the conditions of the New Kumho tires during the earlier practice sessions, the team elected to go with a more conservative set up for the race. All four New Focus got off to good start. Only Andy Yan managed to increase his lead slowly but the Ford drivers couldn’t pull away from the pack behind. Rainey missed one braking point on lap 3 and fell back to 7th. Ex-Changan Ford driver Jiang Tengyi was very motivated and started to attack the front running Focus. With 6 laps to go, race leader Andy Yan slowed down suddenly as a result of a blown tire and had to come in. Jiang Tengyi took advantage of the situation, passed Darryl O’Young and took the lead in the same lap.

After an entertaining race, the Changan Ford Racing Team now leads the young 2014 Championship by one point. Next race will be held in Zhuhai International Circuit two weeks from now.

Team member

 “I think the major issue of Kumho tire is not the compound but the side wall structure. What we are seeing today is a solid proof to that.”

Paul Hui, Team Director

“It has been a very difficult six months. We had to deal with so many issues with respect to regulation, logistics, parts, design, cash, red tapes, procedures, contracts - everything is slowing us down.I want to dedicate this win to the guys who worked non-stop for 12 weeks to get the cars ready and they deserve this great result this week. Great team effort from everyone in the organization to make this happens.”