Victory for Denning & Hart’s Spa debut
Charles Leong and Alex Denning celebrating their 3rd win in 4 races in Lamborghini Super Trofeo Asia championship
In an incident-packed race, Dubliner Alex Denning produced a controlled drive to hand over the 620BHP Lamborghini Huracán in second place after which Macau's Charles Leong moved swiftly into the lead and held off sustained pressure all the way to the chequered flag to record a famous win.
Leong crossed the line with just .442s margin over the second-placed car to unleash scenes of delight on the pit wall with Denning first to congratulate Leong as he arrived back in parc fermé.
Starting from third on the grid, Denning was briefly up to second before settling into third place as the first half of the race unfolded. The Irish driver managed tyre wear and kept the fourth-placed driver at bay as a series of incidents further down the field brought the safety car into play three times.
Running under full course yellow flags, Denning brought the SJM Theodore number 32 car into pit lane to hand over to Leong. Lightning quick work by the pit crew led to a reshuffle of the lead order and helped Leong to resume in front of the erstwhile race leader and in second place as the safety car finally headed into the pit lane with just over 11 minutes of the 50-minute race duration remaining.
Leong plunged down the inside at turn one to take the lead and then faced the biggest test of the weekend as the number 7 car looked for a way past. Displaying impressive coolness under pressure, Leong kept his rival at bay for the remaining three laps.
During that time he discovered that the team's slick pit work was adjudged to have been a fraction too swift and a 0.32 second penalty would be applied at the end of race.
Crossing the line to start the final lap, Leong held a lead of just 0.276s and knew that he would have to create a slight buffer over the remaining lap of the Shanghai Grand Prix circuit to secure the victory. Pulling out all the stops, he extracted every ounce of grip still available from his tyres and opened up the required daylight in the final two sectors. Crossing the line 0.742s clear, the victory translated to less than half a second margin after almost an hour around one of the most challenging venues in world motorsport.
It meant that SJM Theodore have recorded three wins and a second place from the first four races in the championship and head to the third event of the series in Fuji brimful of confidence.
Afterwards Denning reflected on a superb all round team performance.
Alex Denning:
"Race two was a difficult one. We've been pushing hard all weekend to fine tune the balance on the car and we tried something on the car setup that didn't quite work as we'd hoped. Still, the team had a great strategy with the pit stops and it's ultimately been a great weekend.
"We did a great full course yellow procedure to overlap the car ahead and we're absolutely delighted coming away with the win. It's a credit to all of SJM Theodore Racing, all my sponsors and all the work that has been done behind the scenes and to come out with such a strong result in such difficult circumstances."
Theodore MD, David Kenendy:
“This weekend has been amazing for all the team, in some ways better than Sydney in the way the team has responded to every challenge they have faced and come up with solutions that led to a win and a second place finish to extend the series lead.
"The way that Alex managed the tyres in the first stint today and Charles then soaked up the pressure in the final laps was a source of joy for all. It bodes well for the season in the manner in which we continued to extract further performance from the car throughout the weekend and were able to produce the lap times, strategy and on track race craft to give SJM Theodore Racing another weekend to remember.”
A challenging weekend at the legendary Circuit de Spa Francorchamps for the second round of the TCR Europe series for Max Hart.
Max Hart in action at the iconic Circuit de Spa Francorchamps in Round 2 of TCR Europe
Max Hart’s pace was strong right out of the gate, showing he had the speed to be fighting near the front. In qualifying unfortunately, two laps were deleted due to track limits, which meant he had to settle for P15 on the grid, not the result he wanted but knew there was the potential to climb back.
Race 1 was a solid recovery drive. Max showed front-running pace and worked his way up to P9 on track. With two safety cars, this limited how much further he could push through the field with racing being neutralized. Constantly running in the mix and showing great pace throughout though this was a big positive. Unfortunately, another track limits penalty added five seconds to his time, costing positions in the final standings. This meant a P15 finish overall. Still, there were plenty of positives to take from this race and learning as every lap rolled around.
Race 2 started with more strong opening laps, one of Max’s strengths. Managing to fight through to P11 early on and running well, unfortunately bad luck struck Max. Sadly, a tyre delamination forced him to manage the car carefully for the remainder of the race. It was all about survival at that point and strong defending, but the car was brought home and finished with a P11 result.
Max spoke after about his feelings on the weekend-
“A tough weekend in terms of results, but it could have been a lot worse. The pace was there, and driving Spa,one of the world’s most iconic circuits it was an absolute privilege. It’s now firmly one of my favourites on the calendar.”
