06 March 2016
Suzuka, 6th March 2016 – Race 2 of Ferrari Challenge Asia Pacific 2016 season Round 1 was held at Suzuka Circuit on Sunday, the second day of Ferrari Racing Days Suzuka 2016. Despite cloudy skies with the rain from the night before, thousands of fans enthusiastically gathered for the event to enjoy the fast and furious qualifying and final races just like the day before.
Trofeo Pirelli. It was a very fierce one-two battle between Renaldi Hutasoit from Indonesia, who started from pole, and Florian Merckx from Belgium. Both seemed to be competing in a race of their own from the start. They only managed to complete 10 laps before the safety car entered the track after an incident. Merckx was leading the race but was being challenged by Hutasoit, before the activation of the safety car. However, because Merckx passed a back marker whilst under a yellow flag, he was penalised and dropped to third position from first. Steve Wyatt from Australia took second spot.
Pirelli AM. It was the second win in a row for newcomer James Weiland from USA when he found himself at the top of the podium once again. Weiland started first in his class and lead the way throughout the race. He came in at a time of 23’44.978. Weiland commented that he was very surprised at his second victory but was very happy with the results. Coming in second in the Trofeo Pirelli AM classification was Eric Cheung from Canada, who was also in second position in Race 1. Xin Jin from China was third with a time of 23’50.797.
Coppa Shell. Liang Wang from China found success for the second time in the Coppa Shell classification. With a valiant race drive, he maintained his lead in his class throughout the race, with Makoto Fujiwara from Japan close on his tail. Finally Fujiwara finished a close second with a time of 24’00.233 and in third position was rookie Grant Baker from New Zealand. The next round of the Asia Pacific Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli 2016 will take place in Abu Dhabi from April 14 - 16.