The final round of the China Circuit Championship was held at the Shanghai Tian Ma Circuit. The course is a very short course with continuous 90 degree corners, starting from the first corner, and also includes a short straight. Because this course is very similar to the Beijing course, where TEIN had a 1-2-3 finish, there were high hopes for another great result.

 

The FRD&TEIN staff all wanted to finish the season on a high note but with the dates overlapping with the Chinese Rally Championship round, TEIN staff were not able to make it to the first test day. This meant, testing and set up had to be done on the same day as the qualifying session.

With the dates already making it difficult, the tires were also troubling the cars as the qualifying session began. As unfortunately foreseen, both cars were able not to put up fast enough times and had to start from the rear of the grid. Car #2 qualified in 7^th position, and car #1 in 10^th. Pole position was taken by #6 Hankook Accord and 3^rd position by the #7 TSB Accord.

 

Fortunately everyone could feel some relief as the right settings were found during the warm up session, just before the race.

 

Just after the race got under way, one car spun in the first corner leaving not much room for the following cars to pass. Six cars ended up crashing as a result and the red flag had to come out, and it was only the very first lap. Car #3 was involved in the crash, but luckily, was only slightly damaged.

As the safety car left on the second lap, the race got under way again. It was the #31 Mazda 6 which took the lead, followed by the #7 TSB Accord, and the #6 Hankook Accord. Car #2 went up 1 place up the order to 6^th position.

On lap 5, car #2 starting losing speed due to engine trouble but on the other hand, car #1 moved up to 5^th position. On the 10^th lap, car #31 started falling back, and car #1 was now in 4^th position. The top cars were now leaving the field behind, and battle for the top position was down to 4 cars. On the 17^th lap, car #1 pushed hard and overtook car #15 to claim 3^rd position. Car #7 was leading the race and the following 2 cars were right on his tail. On lap 28, second place car #6 made a pit stop, moving the #1 up to 2^nd position! Now the top 2 cars were TEIN cars! As the race came to a finish, the position remained unchanged. The #7 TSB Accord had its first victory of the season. With the FRD car finishing in 2^nd position, this made it a 1-2 finish for TEIN equipped cars. 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th place cars were all equipped with the TEIN N1. TEIN users made up the top 5 finishers!

Following the great finish in the China Rally Championship, the final day of the China Circuit Championship ended on a great note!

 

 

This concludes this season and we all want to thank everyone for their support throughout the year.

We will continue on fighting next year in the 2009 season.