Penalties and chaos in Race 2 of the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Asia

One could say that we Malaysians had high hopes for youngster Afiq Yazid. Afiq had qualified on pole the previous day while Japanese driver Kazuki Hiramine qualified second 0.763 seconds off Afiq’s 1.23.989 time. Yudai Uchida qualified third while Toshiyuki Ochiai came in fourth. The team from Dilantha Malagamuwa and Armaan Ebrahim slotted their number 24 car into the third row of the grid with Michael Choi and Keith Chan’s number 68 car alongside them.

But unfortunately for the Afiq, the car 33 driver immediately got into a major clash with Kazuki Hiramine the moment the two crossed the starting line which resulted in Afiq crashing into the turn 1 barrier effectively ending his weekend. Hiramine had taken the lead immediately after the crash and maintained the lead the entire length of the race.

Unlike in Race 1, the safety car witnessed tons of action. When first Sri Lankan driver Dilantha Malagamuwa ran into the back of Yudai Uchida’s number 8 car while battling for position. This caused Uchida’s car to spin and crash in the barriers bringing out the Safety car to allow the marshals to clear away the car. The Safety car was once again called out when the Huracan racing under the No.36 sticker lost the back end and crashed against the pitlane wall.

The final crashed had brought the race to a premature end but all was not set in stone as race leader Hiramine was under investigation for the crash with Afiq Yazid at the start of the race. Ultimately it was second place man, Davide Rizzo who took to the top step of the podium as the winner of the Pro-am Class with Toshiyaki Ochiai in second and Dilantha Malagamuwa and Armaan Ebrahim taking third as Hiramine was given a 30 seconds time penalty.

In the AM class Andrew Haryanto and Fitra Eri took home the first place trophy while Vincent Wong and Byron Tong took home second.

While Race 2 had ended prematurely it did have with a number of nail-biting overtakes and high speed crashes that shows us just how difficult the circuit is. While we’re disappointed that homeboy Afiq Yazid did not see much action in Race 2 it was still an entertaining race that both driver and spectator had enjoyed.

Jerrica Leong