| Race report by Erwin Luhur |
|
| The 2010 Singapore GP On-road Open Challenge is a yearly event held on April 24â“25 at the East Coast Park Raceway. It was a 2-day event and many foreign drivers from Malaysia (Azri Amri, Barry Ng, Baha & etc), Indonesia (Sadikin, Teddy Syach, Fayakhun, Kris Heriyana, Bowie Ginting, Usman Halim, Agung Dorojatun & etc) and Australia (Leigh Dytor) participated in this event. The race format for this event was a Christmas tree format with no top four sit-out. The schedule was four rounds of qualifying on Saturday and all the finals on Sunday. |
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
| Saturday (Qualifying Rounds) |
|
| Qualifying started at about 10AM after the opening ceremony. The weather was good all day and 2 rounds of qualifying were run successfully before the lunch break. The last 2 rounds of qualifying were run after the break and a few NT1 drivers managed to improve their times on the third and fourth runs. At the end of the fourth rounds there were four NT1 cars in the top 10 with Erwin Luhur securing the 3rd position, Bowie Ginting in 5th position, Tom Goh in 6th position, and Daryl Chen in 10th position. Below are the top 14 drivers who would be in the semi-finals on Sunday. |
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
| Qualifying Result: |
|
1. Teddy Syach (Indonesia)
2. Azri Amri (Malaysia)
3. Erwin Luhur XRAY NT1 (Singapore)
4. Nelson Lee (Singapore)
5. Bowie Ginting XRAY NT1 (Indonesia)
6. Tom Goh XRAY NT1 (Singapore)
7. Philip Lee (Singapore)
8. Barry Ng (Malaysia)
9. Fayakhun (Indonesia)
10. Daryl Chen XRAY NT1 (Singapore)
11. Kris Heriyana (Indonesia)
12. Nordin (Singapore)
13. M. Shah XRAY NT1 (Malaysia)
14. Abedey XRAY NT1 (Malaysia) |
| Sunday (Lower Finals and Grand Final) |
|
Semi-Finals (20 min)
There was a good start in semi-final A and most cars managed to clear the first two corners. Teddy Syach and Erwin Luhur started to pull away from the rest of the pack, with Bowie Ginting following not too far behind. With consistent driving, Don Chng managed to slowly climb to 6th position. At the end of the 20 minutes, Erwin Luhur finished in 2nd, Bowie Ginting in 3rd, Don Chng in 6th and M.Shah in 9th position. The top 6 position in this semi-final would get into the Grand final, putting three NT1 cars into the Grand Final. |
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
|
| In semi-final B, Azri Amri led the pack with Tom Goh, Daryl Chen, Abedey and Baha following closely behind. Abedey managed to climb to 5th position but that was not good enough for the Grand final. At the end of the 20 minute race, Tom Goh finished in 3rd, Abedey in 5th, Daryl Chen in 6th and Baha in 7th position. For this semi-final, only one NT1 car would get into the Grand final, making a total of 4 NT1 cars from both semi-final A & B. The Grand Final starting position was as follows: |
|
|
1. Teddy Syach (Indonesia)
2. Erwin Luhur XRAY NT1 (Singapore)
3. Bowie Ginting XRAY NT1 (Indonesia)
4. Azri Amri (Malaysia)
5. Fayakhun (Indonesia)
6. Ben Seet (Singapore)
7. Tom Goh XRAY NT1 (Singapore)
8. Barry Ng (Malaysia)
9. Philip Lee (Singapore)
10. Don Chng XRAY NT1 (Singapore)
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
| Grand Final |
|
| There was a short break after the semi-finals for the drivers to prepare their cars for the Grand Final. The race finally started at about 4PM. At the start, there were some incidents in the mid pack with several cars touching each other; the top few cars managed to have a clean start. At about the 3rd lap, Erwin Luhur was hit from behind, spun and ended up in the grass. By the time his car was placed back on the track, he was in 7th position. Bowie Genting overtook the lead follow by Tom Goh. |
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
|
| Erwin Luhur continued to drive consistently fast laps and by the 15th lap he was in the 2nd position⦠and by the 31st lap he was leading the race. Erwin Luhur continued to lead the race until around the 64th lap when bad luck struck and his 2nd gear suddenly stripped. He came in for a quick 2nd gear change by his pit crew and he dropped to 7th again. In the meantime, Tom Goh was driving a clean race without any problems and climbed from 7th to 2nd position. Bowie Ginting was driving a consistent race and maintained his 3rd position. Don Chng improved his position to 8th. |
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
|
| By 115th lap, Erwin Luhur had managed to climb up to 3rd position and again his 2-speed gear stripped. With this problem, there was no chance he could catch up to the 2nd position car as there was only about 7 minutes left in the race. The gap between Erwin Luhur and the 2nd and 1st position at this point was about 6sec and 18sec (less than 1 lap) respectively. Erwin Luhur continued to drive with only 1 speed and the final finishing position was as follows: |
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
| Final Result: |
|
1. Philip Lee (Singapore)
2. Tom Goh XRAY NT1 (Singapore)
3. Erwin Luhur XRAY NT1 (Singapore)
4. Bowie Ginting XRAY NT1 (Indonesia)
5. Teddy Syach (Indonesia)
6. Ben Seet (Singapore)
7. Barry Ng (Malaysia)
8. Don Chng XRAY NT1 (Singapore)
9. Azri Amri (Malaysia)
10. Fayakhun (Indonesia)
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
