Having ran the last 4 rounds, The Lotus Supercup Asia proved to be one of Malaysia's most competitive race series. All AM-O1 GT4 race cars are based on almost exact MKII Lotus Exige S homologated for the race. Round 4 showed how competitive the new Series is becoming with the 3 lead drivers - Tan Wei Ron of Malaysia, Dr Bruce Lee of Singapore, and Othman Yahaya, also from Malaysia - locked into a fascinating scrap for the lead with much changing of places in corners, drafting down the straights and late braking tactics contributing to a thrilling and crowd pleasing spectacle.
GTA- RD3&4-Race Edits SuperGT Sepang.mp4 - YouTube
Round 4:
The three way duel for first place was only spoiled in the dying minutes of the race when a drive through penalty was inflicted upon Tan Wei Ron for an infringement of the GT Asia pitstop rules, by the Aylezo Motorsports crew chief assigned to Tan, who let him go 1 second too early.
This mistake by the crew chief cost Tan any chance of a 4th consecutive podium finish – having won the first three rounds – although he still leads the Championship.
After all this excitement the chequered flag was taken by Othman for a hard earned and well fought victory, with Dr Bruce Lee second and a surprised and happy Chiew Ruoh Peng, who had been closely shadowing the lead battle looking for an opportunity, in third podium spot.
On the other end of the grid, Ravindra Panchalingam and Sean Cheng were once again locking horns all through the race. This Round, it was Sean Cheng who came up on top, exacting revenge to his loss to Ravindra in Round 3 the previous day.
Round 3:
Race 3 turned out to be defined by hard but cleanly fought battles for 2nd and 3rd spots as well as 5th and 6th. Bruce Lee who finished 3rd paid the price for a momentary lapse of focus, losing out to Othman Yahaya in 2nd.
Pole sitter Tan Wei Ron pulled away at the front for an insurmountable lead all the way to the checkered flag.
Bruce summed up his race, "Good race, I got what I deserve. Drove as well as I could today.
"Good start, lots of traffic first few corners, kept second place. Othman caught up, fought for a couple of laps.
"I lost some time in the pits. And had to push hard to close the gap. Then 2 laps to go, I caught up at Turn 14 but got too excited to pass and spun the car.
"I wasn't worried about the car in 4th behind me because we had a good gap. Final incident was that I got bumped from behind twice in the same corner by the same car, which was an Aston Martin GT4 car in Turn 2. I almost spun the first time and was surprised to get bumped again immediately after. The driver was too hasty to get by even though he was in a quicker class car."
In the middle group was Chiew Ruoh Peng, "I Started fairly good after qualifying 4th. In the beginning the race was quite close, after a while the front-runners just kept pulling away. After the 5th lap I was practically alone.
"So it was a solid 4th placing and I was hoping to catch up with the front runners but it was not meant to be this time.
Battling for 5th and 6th was just as fierce, with Ravindra Panchalingam piping the finish line barely 2 seconds ahead of Sean Cheng.
Lotus Supercup Asia Race Standings
GT Asia Race Round 3 Standings
GT Asia Race Round 4 Standings
