It was a very hot but at the same time very rewarding weekend at Buriram’s Chang International Circuit as B-Quik Absolute Racing kicked off the 2023 TSS The Super Series season with a win, a stack of podiums and a big helping of championship points as the defence of the Drivers’ and Teams’ titles got underway.
 
It all kicked off on Saturday afternoon and rarely has there been a race day that has gone so well. The first race of the new year netted a 1-2-3-5 finish, all four cars on the podium, pole position to victory for the #25 Audi R8 LMS GT3 evo II and maximum hauls of Teams’ and Drivers’ points.
 
The hottest temperatures the team can ever recollect racing in seemed to have worked! The drivers gave it everything, all the crew, absolutely everyone, put in 110% hard work and the result was sensational.
 
In Akash Nandy and Adisak Tangphuncharoen the team has two real stars. Nandy arrived in the team for the first time last year and promptly won the Super Car GT3 Drivers’ title.
 
The team rejigged the the #25 Audi’s roster to put Tangphuncharoen in the car and on his debut, the rising star of the B-Quik Junior Driver Programme, the first from this “staircase of talent” to ever graduate to Super Car, delivered big time. The result was a stunning first win in Super Car GT3 in his first ever race in a GT3 car!
 
Second place went to the #13 Audi shared by Cheng Congfu and Sun Jing Zu while Vicente Floriendo was back with former Formula One driver Markus Winkelhock in the #55 Audi and these guys went on a hard charge. At the end of the 1-hour race Winkelhock was banging in the purples as the car climbed up the order to finish P3.
 
Henk Kiks and Eshan Pieris made it all four cars on the podium and almost made it all four cars in the top four as Pieris was swarming all over the Lexus GT3 running in P4 in the dying minutes and the Sri Lankan really needed only a few more metres to make a pass stick. One of the drives of the race.
 
Sunday’s Race 2 was one of consolidation and bagging up points as, although the four cars locked out the first two rows of the grid, the win would prove to be elusive. But with three cars on the podium at the end of a very tough race it was a satisfying way to end the first race weekend of the year.
 
Best of the Audi quartet was the #13 of Cheng and Sun in third as they edged out the #55 of Floriendo and Winkelhock, which put in another charging drive, while the #25 Audi of Nandy and Tangphuncharoen endured a tough race and an incident with another car saw them serve a drive through penalty in the dying seconds which dropped the pair to P5.
 
On their debut as a pairing in the new 1 hour format Super Car GT4, Iaro Razanakoto and Chanon Asavasangsidhi had a terrific afternoon on their way to P2 in the #88 Porsche Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport and the duo added another trip to the podium in Race 2.
 
So, the team heads home from Chang International Circuit very happy with how the weekend shook out and ready to start preparing for the big one as Round 2 is the iconic Bangsaen Grand, that's coming up in almost exactly two months time!