Eurasia Motorsport’s rookie drivers, Red Diwa and Andy Liang, both had a strong weekend with plenty of promise demonstrated in their Hyundai Elantra N TCR cars. Liang received the TCR Award Trophy in both races whilst Diwa started race two on the front row of the starting grid.
Filipino driver, Diwa, experienced his first race outside of his home country in a car with almost three times the power of his previous race cars. It was also his first experience of slick tyres and running without ABS. Like Diwa this was Andy Liang’s first experience of the Shanghai F1 circuit.
Diwa achieved his ambition to go through to qualifying two finishing 9th overall. Taiwanese Andy Liang just missed qualifying two but was satisfied considering his lack of testing at the challenging circuit. Diwa then looked like he was going to tick another box by finishing on the Cup Class Podium running 2nd in class on the last lap of race one. However he was punted off by the third placed car and finished 15th after rejoining. Liang meanwhile had risen to 8th overall giving him the TCR Trophy which is awarded to the Q1 driver making up most places in the race.
Sunday dawned cold and wet and this was an issue for Diwa as he had never before driven a race car on wet race tyres or without ABS. Starting from the front row he took some time to master the car in the conditions and eventually finished 11th one place in front of his team mate Andy Liang, the latter adding another TCR Trophy to his collection.
Eurasia Motorsport’s Team Principal reported that he was happy Red Diwa ticked most of his pre-event boxes by taking part in Q2 and only losing out on a podium finish through no fault of his own. Likewise Andy Liang demonstrated a lot of promise and fully deserved his TCR Trophies.
“Since 2020 and due to the effect of the pandemic on International Asian Motorsport Eurasia has competed two Le Mans 24h and one Dayona 24h under our own name.” stated Goddard. “We have entered joint ventures with other teams winning the GTWC Australia in 2023, competing in the GTD Class of the 2022 IMSA Weathertech Championship in 2022 and our seconded staff have run cars in F4 India, European Le Mans and the Le Mans 24h. We have maintained our skill level at high levels of the sport. Shanghai is first time since the 2021 Le Mans 24h that the team has entered an event under our own name and we now have several more exciting programs on the horizon”.
