JAPANESE SUPERGT

Over at the Sepang Circuit this weekend (18 - 19 June 2011) the ThunderAsia team were out in their 'home race'. The only Malaysian round of the Japanese GT Last year the ThunderAsia team took delivery of a new Mosler GT300, and the team have now started their second season. With Melvin Choo now sharing the drive with Hiroki Yoshida things are starting to come together after an intensive programme of work on the aero package on the car.

 

 

Team Manager Raja Zaini sent us a report of the weekend.

“It’s a great weekend for the team, especially during qualifying. Qualifying was a joy. We were 3rd then beaten by the Ferrari by 1000th of a second, ended up fourth. Superlap, we were fastest in sector 1 and then an oversteer at turn 7 ended our hopes - we got eighth instead. 

Most importantly we know that we were "there" already and the car worked. The car was brilliant on the twisty bits of Sepang and only lost out to the FIA cars on the straights. The BMW was the fastest on the straight at 224km/h. Ours is 12km/h slower at 211 average and 213 top. 

We did some aero changes to the car, but found that the changes we brought in were causing oversteer. We tried adding more rear wing to balance this out but it slowed the car too much – we were losing 5 kpm on the straight. 

Next round is Sugo; a short, narrow and twisty circuit. I think we will do well on this track with these modifications. Stay tuned...!

On behalf of all, I would like to thank you all for the effort that you guys did for this car. After over one year of development, we finally have the fastest JAF GT300 car out there - even beating the Shiden. Somehow I always had the feeling that she will shine one day and she did. Hats off guys. Thank you.”