The team was already enjoying a great winning streak in the 2014 Malaysian Super Series season where car #19 driven by Mark Darwin and Fitra Eri has been collecting wins throughout the season. But obviously they have no plans in ending the streak just yet as on the recently concluded Round 3, the duo once again stuns the crowd by grabbing yet another win for Team Sakura-Tedco Racing.
But their journey to the top was not a walk in the park as earlier in the qualifying session, the gearbox in the #19 Proton Satria Neo gave away, forcing them to use a lower-spec gearbox in which both of them were not so familiar with.
“We knew that we were going to have a tough fight in the race and because of the gearbox issue in hand, we only managed to qualify in P3. We did not have the chance to improve our timing of 2:38.936,” said Fitra Eri.
But not using the gearbox issue as an excuse, Fitra had managed to familiarize himself with the new gearbox and mightily pushed the car in the race.
“I had a very good start in the race where from P3, I jumped straight to P1. Syafiq (Proton R3) also drove very good and very aggressive, so we fought and changed positions a couple of times for about four or five laps. After that, we were able to put some distance between us,” he added.
After the pit stop in which Mark Darwin took over, they were still in front of Syafiq and posting up lap times that were almost similar to one another. But since they did not change the tires during the pit stop, Mark had to preserve the rubber as well to make it to the finish line.
“We did not change the tires during the pit stop and wanted to see how long the tires could last. After three or four laps, the tires were finished and there was no grip at all. Syafiq was chasing us and we had to maintain the pace, but it was difficult with the tire conditions”, said Mark.
But despite the poor tire condition and the hot temperature, Mark managed to maintain the lead and secured Team Sakura-Tedco Racing’s fourth consecutive win for the 2014 MSS season.
Another Satria Neo fielded by the team is the #63 driven by Desmond Khoo and Ong Chee Yong. Running alongside Glocomp Racing, the duo used to race together in Saturday Night Fever and Sepang 1000KM endurance race. Once again, the hot temperature meant that they could not nail down a very good timing during qualifying, earning them the fifth spot on the grid to start the race.
“With the new set of tires, we were able to set a competitive time, but it was not as good as the last round because of the hot weather and everyone was suffering in terms of the lap times. But we maintained our pace and qualified in P5. Nothing great, but it is a good start to fight for the podium,” said Desmond.
Starting the race, Desmond had a fierce fight with James Veerapen from Proton R3 in the Preve. They were literally inches away from each other and the fight went on all the way until the pit windows were open. Desmond then went in and passed the wheel to Ong for the second stint of the race. But it was not long until James was back to challenge the #63 Neo.
“I could see the R3 car driven by James closing in from the straights. He was probably 6 seconds behind me, but he was doing a better job in terms of the timing. I was about 1-2 seconds slower so he managed to catch up. I then made a mistake at T12 where I turned in too early and hit the curb, which made the car bouncing and could not settle down, leading to a sudden oversteer,” said Ong.
However, he did manage to regain control of the car, but by then James was already in front of them. Desmond and Ong finished the race in fourth position.
The #66 Proton Preve also made a comeback in this round, with Ken Yap partnering up with Aaron Lim. Aaron was involved in the development of the successful #19 car before having committed with the Honda Malaysia Racing Team. With the Preve still needing a lot of attention, Aaron lends a hand in ironing out the bugs and weeding out the small issues to improve the car.
“Considering the car has yet to run a lot of laps, we have improved the car a lot since Thursday. But it is still a little bit off the pace compared to the other cars in the team itself. Car #19 has won all the races this year, so the target here is to make the Preve a little bit closer towards the front pace,” explained Aaron.
With still much work to be poured into this Preve, they only managed to clock a best time of 2:43.864 during qualifying, putting them in 10th position on the grid to start the race. While Aaron did manage to get a good start during the race, an incident involving a Honda DC5 running in the Touring Production category had dropped them down in the positions. Aaron then pushed hard to get a higher position before handing over the wheel to Ken Yap.
“When I took over the wheels, I could see the TOC car just in front of me and I tried very hard to chase him up. I finally managed to get past him to earn another position, and at the end of the race, one car had an engine failure and we finished the race in eighth position,” said Ken Yap.
