DRIVERS UPDATE : ATCS / F.BMW : Fariqe Hairuman / Dominic Ang, Melvin Moh

It was a weekend of one unfortunate occurrence after another for both Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 cars #1 and #28 at the third round of the Super Taikyu 2012 Series, sending the PETRONAS Syntium Team into a bevy of contingencies. Undeterred, the team remained focused and calm throughout the series of challenges on the 3.704-kilometre Sportsland Sugo road racing course and pulled through with car #1 finishing overall first. Car #28 had a promising start to the race with pole position and a commanding lead initially, but eventually finished overall 16th and third in the ST-GT3 class. Now halfway through the season, car #1 has a perfect score with its hat trick of three wins in three rounds.

Driving for #1 this round are Nobuteru Taniguchi, Fariqe Hairuman and Dominic Ang, while Tatsuya Kataoka, Jono Lester and Melvin Moh helmed #28. Showing strong timings during practice on Saturday, the drivers of #28 carried this performance into Sunday morning and secured their first pole position of the season with the combined best lap times of Kataoka and Lester. The front row of the grid was locked out by the team once again, with #1 qualifying in second.

Lester made a clean start for the three-hour race at Sugo in #28, smoothly pulling away from Hairuman in #1. The latter lost a place at the first turn and was trying to get back ahead when the safety car came out on the second lap due to an incident at the back of the grid. Upon the restart on lap 6, Hairuman was unable to get ahead and instead, fell further back one position at the first turn again. While Lester was concentrating on building a gap from the rest of the field, Hairuman encountered contact with another car and went off the track just after 11 laps. Precious moments were lost there and after managing to get car #1 back on track, Hairuman pitted for Taniguchi to take over the wheel.

Working from 37th place near the back of the 42-car grid, Taniguchi skillfully ploughed through the field, taking one car at a time till he was in second place by the end of his one-hour stint. During this time, Lester was steadily building on his lead and had amassed a 51-second lead when the car ran into rear suspension problems and had to pit in for repair. Moh

went out next, finding himself 11 laps behind the race leader in 37th place. The baton for #28 was last passed to Kataoka, who was equally fired up to catch as many cars as possible. Alas, he had to serve a drive-through penalty during his stint due to improper release from the pit when he took over.

Taniguchi handed car #1 over to Ang, who then chased down the last few cars ahead to take the lead and maintain it to the chequered flag. Towards the end, Ang had to come into the pits briefly to refuel the car and had the lead reduced slightly, but nonetheless taking victory eventually - their third win in three rounds. #28 followed up in 16th overall and third in class.

“This has been our most exciting race so far, with a lot of things happening continuously. A truly good team is one that does well under both desirable and undesirable conditions, and today the team has proven that we are able to manage unpredictable circumstances. We are on a constant learning curve and I think the drivers took back some valuable lessons from today’s experience that will serve them good over the course of time, be it in life or in racing,” said Dato’ David Wong, team principal of PETRONAS Syntium Team.

The Super Taikyu Series will take a three-month break for the summer before resuming with the fourth round at the end of August. Teams have a choice of either racing at Okayama International Circuit on 25-26 August or at the Malaysia Millennium Endurance Race (MMER) at Sepang International Circuit on 31 August to 1 September. PETRONAS Syntium Team will be heading to Malaysia to defend its title at Sepang, where they made the debut of their SLS AMG GT3 cars and secured victory subsequently.

Dato’ Wong added, “The next race may be a few months away, but that does not mean the work stops. We will continue to work hard in preparation for the MMER, where we aim to defend our title in the home country for our team.”

FARIQE HAIRUMAN / No. 1

I feel really sorry to the team for what happened during my stint. I was doing my best to avoid any unwanted incident but I seemed to be down on luck today. While caught in traffic, another car from another class made contact with me and I went off the track. I want to congratulate my team-mates Taniguchi and Dominic on a job well done - they really drove very hard to make up for my mistakes and win the race.

DOMINIC ANG / No. 1

It was an exciting weekend, with everyone in our category running into trouble, including us. The adversity caused us to change our strategy, which then worked to our advantage when the other cars ran into trouble. It was a relief to eventually get the win after all the problems. It was a good experience for me today, having driven the longest stint and also having to conserve fuel while maintaining the lead.

MELVIN MOH / No. 28

After qualifying in pole position, I thought our car stood a very good chance of winning. Jono did a good job pulling away from the cars at the start and when Fariqe in sister car #1 made his mistake; I thought the win was in the bag. Unfortunately our car had some suspension problems in the right rear and that’s where we lost all the time. For my stint it was actually quite good, compared to the last race at Motegi. I think I made a good improvement in my driving from this race. Hopefully I can improve further, as the next race at MMER is on home ground and means a lot to me.

Prepared by www.teampetronas.com

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