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GT Radial Drift Racers #3 team at Asia Drift Singapore including Australian, Josh Boettcher racing on GT Radial Champiro HPYs.
June 11th-12th 2011
The first series of Formula Drift Asia 2011 kicked off in Singapore during the weekend of June 11th. With 42 of the strongest teams ever to participate in this year's series, including big names such as Daigo Saito, Robbie Nishida and Ken Gushi, the excitement and adrenalin had delivered as promised.
GT Radial Drift Team also presented the most promising team ever to participate in the Formula Drift Asia Series, with 7 top drivers from 4 different countries.
Australia – Josh Boettcher
Indonesia – Dean Zen and Rio Saputro
Malaysia – Ee Yoong Cherng, Muhammad Zaiham and Kevin Rajoo
Singapore – Jason Tan
Team spirit was evident from day one, as drivers from different countries helped each other in the logistics arrangements of the cars from the Singapore port to the event grounds, and assisted each other in assessing the competitors throughout the event.
Qualifying day was met by unexpected weather, with heavy rain disrupting the morning practice session. Yoong from Malaysia, participating in his 4th year in Formula Drift Asia, led the charge in qualifying, finishing 3rd place as he completed a perfect run in the wet and slippery track.
Josh, participating in the his first event out of Australia, where he was crowned champion of the 2010 Australia Pro Drift Series, qualified in 13th.Zai, Dean and Jason also qualified in 17th, 25th and 31st respectively.
Final day started off with the tandem battles, where the knockout format means that drivers will only have one chance to prove their skills into the next round. It is conducted with each driver taking turns to lead, and the driver with the ability to close in on the leading car throughout the track declared the winner.
Yoong easily overcome Lim Zee King in the 1st round, and defeated Kiki in the top 16 round after 3 rounds of draw results from the judges. Unfortunately, his exhaustion had taken a toll on him as he lost the next round to 2010 2nd placed driver Saranon from Thailand. Josh and Dean lost out to Formula Drift USA drivers Ken Gushi and Daigo Saito respectively in the top 8 round as well. With 3 drivers finishing within top 8, GT Radial Drift Team managed to secure 3rd place overall in the team standings.
"This is definitely a big step forward for GT Radial Motorsports in Asia", says Adrian Thio, Manager, International Marketing A&P. "The GT Radial Drift Team formed for this year's Formula Drift Asia has proven themselves the ability to mount a serious challenge for the title this season. We have also been able to show consumers the performance of GT Radial tyres on the cars which powers up to over 500hp."
The next Formula Drift Asia event will be held in Jakarta, Indonesia in October 2011. |
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