The arrival of Porsche Carrera Cup Asia (PCCA) ushered in a new chapter for the Bangsaen Grand Prix and the high profile Asian ‘one make’ championship reserved for Porsche’s 991 GT3 Cup brought some real style and panache with it. As well as the frenetic track action the series planted its expansive hospitality tents right on the beach opposite the dummy grid and lined the racecars up in a long open plan garage on Beach Road.
PCCA certainly put on a good show and took to the streets of Bangsaen like a duck to water. One name out of many stars stood out though – Bamber. Younger brother Will planted his car on pole for both races after proving untouchable during qualifying and then backed that pace up by leading both races from lights-to-flag to make it two wins out of two. A clean sweep and his name in the record books.
Meanwhile, older brother Earl, fresh from his second win at the Le Mans 24 Hours, was a VIP guest at the weekend and found time to rip up the track in the new Porsche 991 GT3 Cup update that will become the mainstay of this series next year.
Also this issue, the ‘internationalisation’ of Bangsaen went really well, that was the view of Motorsport Asia’s Managing Director David Sonenscher while from a race engineering standpoint, Sven Schnabl gives is view of the Bangsaen Street Circuit. Australian ‘V8 Supercar’ racer Steve Owen was at Bangsaen to pilot the Ford Mustang and he got the job done while enjoying the circuit.
Finally, there were plenty of lady racers in action during the Bangsaen Grand Prix – but there was no pace better to find them in a big cluster than in Toyota Motorsport’s Vios Lady Cup, a highly popular ‘one make’ race reserved exclusively for lady drivers. Two that stood out where Thai celebrity and racer Natalie Davies and rapidly emerging Japanese pilot Rina Ito.
Porsche Carrera Cup Asia hits the mark
Most of the teams and drivers in Porsche Carrera Cup Asia were seeing Bangsaen for the first time and it certainly showed, there were seven red flags periods during the practice and qualifying sessions as they set about learning this narrow and tricky 3.7-km circuit from scratch.
One driver though that knows this track very well is Will Bamber – and it would turn out to be something of a ‘Bamber’ weekend with ‘big brother’ Earl in town as a guest of honour. That local knowledge paid off handsomely as Will steered clear of the barriers’ claustrophobic embrace and planted the FAW T2 Motorsport Porsche on pole for both races.
In Race 1 he routinely converted pole into the race lead and over the opening laps fended off the close attentions of 2015 PCCA champion Chris Van Der Drift who has returned to the series this year and swarmed all over the back of Will’s car. The two New Zealanders were untouchable at the front but as the race progressed Will took command to deliver a perfect lights-to-flag victory, albeit with just half a second in it.
Such was the ferocious pace set by the top two that third placed Philip Hamprecht was eight seconds down the road. The 20-year-old German, who is also competing in European GT4 this year, was racing pretty much by himself as a further seven seconds down the road came Porsche factory driver Martin Ragginger – a well-known face the TSS paddock as he coached ‘Kiki’ Sak Nana when he drove a Porsche 997 GT3-R in Super Car GT3 a few seasons ago – and he just about fended off the top Thai driver, Tanart Sathienthirakul, who is now well into his first season in PCCA.
Then came ‘Porsche China Junior’ academy youngster Andrew Tang who bounced back strongly following a huge crash during the previous round that had seen his car being stripped down and rebuilt into a brand new shell by the Porsche technical staff in the Bangsaen paddock earlier on in the week.
In the Pro-Am class Yuey Tan, putting his local knowledge to good use as he had raced here in the RAAT Toyota 6 Hour Endurance Race during last February’s delayed 10th Bangsaen Grand Prix, took the win while fifth and eighth place in class for Bobby Buncharoen and Sontaya Kunplome, was an excellent result for these two ‘local’ drivers.
Race 2 saw a carbon copy of the top five for the second consecutive day, although that didn’t mean the race was without dramas. Will started from pole once again and capably resisted an immediate lunge by 31-year-old Chris, a New Zealander of Dutch descent, to keep the lead. Once again the two New Zealanders would fight it out all the way to the chequered flag, once again the gap separating the pair at the end would be just half a second, this time though there would be a mid-race red flag to interrupt everyone after Bao Jinlong whacked the unforgiving barriers.
Philip took third place for the second consecutive day after having to fend off Martin during the closing stages of the race. In turn the latter had to resist strong pressure from Tanart – the highest place Thai driver again – and third to fifth were covered by just half a second at the flag. For Tanart his pair of fifth places from the two races saw him comfortably emerging as the top Thai driver from the weekend.
In the Pro-Am class the win went to Yuan Bo with Bobby, taking fifth for the second consecutive day, and Sontaya, a further four spots behind, both well placed to uphold Thai honour superbly.
Double Le Mans winner tries Bangsaen for size
Earl Bamber has had a stellar career so far. The 27-year-old New Zealander spent his early racing years in single seaters, contesting a plethora of series – including Australian Formula Ford, Superleague Formula, Toyota Racing Series, GP2 Asia, Formula BMW Asia, A1GP and F3000 – but it was only in 2013 when he really put his career on a path to the top after winning PCCA. He went on to comfortably repeat that feat a year later as well as winning the prestigious Porsche Supercup.
A year later Earl achieved the biggest sportscar triumph of them all, winning the Le Mans 24 Hours outright in the factory-run Porsche 919 Hybrid and he repeated that amazing feat this year – that second win coming just a fortnight before Bangsaen took place. In fact, the striking Le Mans winners’ trophy was displayed in PCCA’s beachfront hospitality tent. That in itself summed up perfectly just how far the event has progressed.
Earl – who can also count a victory at Macau in PCCA to his name – took new Porsche 991 GT3 Cup out for ‘hot laps’ on both the Saturday and Sunday at Bangsaen so there really isn’t any driver better placed to offer his opinion of our street circuit.
And his first impressions are very positive. “It’s a great track, it reminds me a lot of Macau which is a circuit I really, really love,” he says. “It’s definitely a special event as well to come here on the beach where we’re standing now and have a racetrack it definitely gets the blood pumping.
Earl says that as soon as he got out onto the track, the racing driver in him took over and he was immediately learning, pushing and probing the street course. “I was trying to find the limit in the limited laps I had to do but the adrenaline is going and it’s a nice feeling that you don’t get on some of the tracks anymore,” he says. I’m quite jealous that I wasn’t out there racing.”
It wasn’t just about the taking the Porsche for a spin, he added that he had enjoyed the whole extravaganza as a VIP ‘guest’. “It’s cool, it’s a special show, I heard a lot before coming here and actually I had planned to come privately to the previous one but ended up not making it,” he says. “It’s a real privilege to come here now and just to be on the beach with the atmosphere and people can get so close to it as well and also all the Thai fans are so friendly and so enthusiastic about motorsport and the motorsport culture here is growing and growing so it’s great to have these sorts of events.”
Bamber lockout in PCCA
There was something of a Bamber takeover at the 11th Bangsaen Grand Prix. While Earl, fresh from his Le Mans 24 Hours victory and with the iconic winners’ trophy in tow, was a ‘guest of honour’, younger brother Will, who is steadily following in Earl’s footsteps, didn’t let himself get squeezed out of the limelight as he won both PCCA races, the triumphs coming after he had led both races from pole to chequered flag (see separate story).
While it was Earl’s first time to ever take to this track, for Will it’s more like a ‘second home’. He raced here back in February in the RAAT Toyota 6 Hour Endurance Race, so that’s given him a lot of cockpit time pounding around the 3.7 km street circuit, while he’s also the long-time driver coach of Super Car GTM team Painkiller Racing, testing and setting up their roster of racecars which handily includes a Porsche 991 GT3 Cup.
Will was delighted with how the weekend had shaken out, his double win put him in the history books and hauled him up to the front of the championship classification. “It’s been great to be here for the inaugural PCCA race on the Bangsaen streets,” he said on Sunday afternoon as PCCA started packing up. “Obviously I’m super stoked to finally be here and race my Cup car on these streets. It’s been super challenging and produced some fantastic racing for Carrera Cup. It’s been mega close and I’m ecstatic to have taken out the first victory here. It’s going to be sad to leave this place after such a great weekend and I can’t wait to be back next year.”
Earl meanwhile was pleased to see his brother make his way to the top of the podium. “I was really happy to see clean [races] in Carrera Cup and the racing was quite fierce and also some nice spots to overtake as well and also the atmosphere and crowd,” he said. “It’s been great [for Will], he’s got a lot of support from Thailand so I think it’s great he managed to win both races at almost his local race and to see his supporters here.”
