The location – Sportsland Sugo, Japan and their rocket-fast stead was the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 for cars #1 and #28, during the 3rd round of the Super Taikyu 2012 Series which Team PETRONAS Syntium ended at the top with plenty of drama last weekend.
Still they remained calm, focussed and undeterred as they put their visors down for the 3.704km road racing course finishing overall first for car #1 after having started in 2nd; thanks to drivers of Nobuteru Taniguchi, Fariqe Hairuman and Dominic Ang, making it a perfect hat trick of 3 wins for three rounds!
However, Tatsuya Kataoka, Jono Lester and Melvin Moh helmed Car #28 and possessed most promise having started from pole and even commanded the initial lead. Unfortunately lady-luck was not on their side as they managed to finish in 3rd place, placing them 16th overall for the ST-GT3 class.
Lester made a clean start for the three-hour race at Sugo in #28, smoothly pulling away from Hairuman in car #1, who lost a place at turn 1 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.
Lap 6 saw the restart of the race but Hairuman was unable to get ahead instead loosing out another position at turn 1 again. As Lester concentrated on extending the gap from the rest of the field, there was contact between Hairuman and another car, sending him off track on the 11th lap. Thankfully, he managed to save the car and brought it back on track and headed for the pits for a quick refuel and driver change where Taniguchi took over and began his one hour stint of the race back in 37th position of the 42-car grid.
Taniguchi skilfully ploughed through the field, taking one car at a time and brought the team back up to 2nd place after his hour-long stint, with a 51s gap between them and car #28.
Unfortunately, car #28 experienced problems with the rear suspension and had to dive into the pits for repairs, which put them back 11 laps when Moh took the helm in 37th place. At the next driver change, Kataoka unfortunately had to serve a drive-through penalty during due to improper release from the pit when he took over.
Meanwhile, Taniguchi handed car #1 over to Ang, who managed to catch up, engage and subsequently overtake the few cars ahead to put them at the top of the field. With a quick pit stop for fuel, Ang took the car all the way to the chequered flag.
“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.”
