The opening round of the 2015 Asian On-Road Championships took place in the Chinese city of Shanghai at the very impressive RCI v2 facility. The race took place over 2 days, Friday and Saturday. I arrived at the track on the Sunday before the race weekend to get familiarized with the track as I have almost zero carpet experience. Arriving early proved crucial as initially I had trouble getting used to driving on carpet with such high grip, changing weather conditions and also challenging US-style track barriers.

My 411 v3.0 was handling fantastic from the first day as we found a good setup early. I decided to make minimal changes from then onwards and instead focus on consistent laps.

Official free practice started on Thursday where we ran on the reverse layout. The race began on Friday where 1 round of controlled practice took place followed by 3 rounds of qualifying and 1 round of qualifying the next day, where grid positions were to be decided by ‘rocket round’ format.

Controlled Practice Results
1.Daryl Thong – 31.062  - Serpent 411 ERYX 3.0
2.Eric Anderson – 31.497
3.Salton Dong – 31.628
4.Yaowei Guo – 31.687
5.Lo Lao – 32.180
6.Jimmy So – 32.861
7.Fu Xiao – 33.199
8.Jia Run Chen – 33.228
9.Jimmy Qian – 33.253
10.Tiny Welch – 34.289

Qualifying was pretty straightforward as I took the top spot in 3 of the 4 qualifying rounds after a DNF in the opening round. I ended the first day with a 5 second lead over the second placed driver.

Day 2 started off with the last round of qualifying, where I improved on my qualifying time to go 1 lap ahead of the field.

Qualifying results
1.Daryl Thong 30 laps / 5:09.843
2.Guo Yaowei  29 laps / 5:05.995
3.Eric Anderson  29 laps / 5:08.650
4.Salton Dong 28 laps / 5:02.058
5.Jimmy Qian 28 laps / 5:04.023
6.Jimmy So 28 laps / 5:04.174
7.Fu Xiao 27 laps / 5:00.586
8.Lo Lao 27 Laps / 5:01.254
9.Tiny Welch 26 Laps / 5:05.171
10.Jia Run Chen 26 laps / 5:08.725

Finals

In A1, I finished 3rd after I had a collision with the second car in the opening lap which dropped me back to the tail end of the field, with Guo Yaowei taking the win. There was a battle for the lead between me and Guo Yaowei in A2 where he got by, by I re-took the lead the following lap after he made a mistake and I took the win in A2. A3 was the crucial deciding final as it was between me and Guo Yaowei who had a win apiece. However a clean final saw me take a tone to tone victory and with it the overall victory for the 13.5 Boosted Class.

Final Results (A Main)
1.Daryl Thong
2.Guo Yaowei
3.Jimmy Qian
4.Salton Dong
5.Eric Anderson
6.Lo Lao
7.Jimmy So
8.Fu Xiao