Following recent success in Formula cars and Prototype sportscars in Europe and Asia, including a debut appearance in 2016 at the Le Mans 24 Hour race, CMRT Eurasia returned to GT Racing with an Aston Martin Vantage GT3 for the opening round of the Blancpain Asia Series at Sepang, Malaysia this weekend (8-9 April, 2017).
Having been the pioneering team in Asia to campaign the Aston Martin, CMRT Eurasia and drivers James Cai and Kenneth Lim to enter the SRO organisation’s new-to-Asia Blancpain championship, which is set to become Asia’s premier sportscar series having boasted a field of 30 cars for the Sepang opener.
Competing in the all amateur class, CMRT Eurasia will be seeking to enhance their reputation for developing drivers of all ages and abilities and so it proved as James Cai and Kenneth Lim claimed a double podium with third place in both rounds one and two at the Malaysian track.
The weekend was not all plain sailing as the team had to be very resourceful to bring the car to the grid for Saturdays opening race after a late component failure left the team unable to take up its grid position by the engineers worked tirelessly to solve the issue.
Despite the pit lane start and dropping a lap to the field, the drivers raced on undeterred to keep the pressure on the other Am/Am competitors and take the final step on the podium.
Sundays second race saw less drama at the start, but ultimately the same result as the drivers were left slightly disappointed not to have taken second after a close battle with rival class runner. CMRT Eurasia Director Martin Quick was pleased for the drivers and the result for the team.
“It’s great to be back on track with GT3 and Aston Martin, who we enjoyed a lot of past success with, the partnership with CMRT allowed it to happen and the guys did a great driving job despite their relative inexperience of racing at this level.
“I am also pleased that we were able to avert a possible disaster on the car with some typical engineering prowess that our crew possess when under pressure!”
CMRT Eurasia will now move on to Buriram, Thailand for the next round of the six-round series on 20-21 May.
