The 2013 China Touring Car Championship Gets Off to a Rough Start | Asia Motorsports Network

The long anticipated start to the 2013 CTCC season faced an abundant amount of obstacles this weekend at Zhuhai International Circuit.  An untested tire supplier, planned introduction of a “spec” car and weather all contributed to a rather bumpy first weekend.  Expectations were for 15 cars from 5 teams with the possibility of Honda adding a car as well, but on qualifying day private team ASR de Marco and Honda were both no shows.  Kia K2 had not provided all their document requirements and private team G Racing only had one of their Cruzes ready to go.

That left a field on 4 333 VW’s, 4 FRD Fords and a G Racing Chevy to challenge for position during qualifying.  FRD’s newly signed driver Martin Xie captured the pole position followed by VW’s Wang Rue and Gao Hau Wang.  2012 Drivers Champion and fan favorite Han Han of 333 suffered a mechanical issue and could not finish the qualifying session so he was forced to start Sunday in 9th position.

Sunday brought even more surprises as two of the K2 Kia’s and an additional G Racing Cruze were allowed to enter the race despite not participating in the qualifying session bringing the field up to 12 cars.  Unfortunately Han Han’s day ended before it even started as 333 did not have the necessary parts to fix his mechanical issue from the day before.

Just before race time the Zhuhai area was hit by a massive rain storm, but after a 10 minute delay for a tire change organizers decided to proceed with the race.  In the very first turn VW’s Gao Hau Wang spun off the track and by the end of the 3rd lap 3 more drivers joined him including front-runner Martin Xie from FRD.   The safety car was deployed with VW 333’s Wang Rue in the lead.  The bulk of the remainder of the race proceeded under caution and was finally stopped after only 12 laps.  Following Wang Rue to the premature checkered flag were FRD’s Rainey He and Kia’s Lin Le Feng who took 3rd despite not participating in qualifying.

Despite the rough start, I believe the 10 anniversary season will end up being a great one.  Next stop for CTCC is in Shanghai at the International circuit on May 26th.