Teamwork’s Paul Poon piloted his Suncity Group RCZ to his third consecutive podium in the CTM Macau Touring Car 1.6T Class this weekend at the Guia Circuit.
Teamwork came to the Macau Grand Prix race week with bad news for the TCR squad in the Chinese Racing Cup. Due to late arrival of the containers for Teamwork’s VW Golf TCRs as well as a few other competitors from TCR China, the Macau GP committee didn’t permit these late arrivals to take part in the Macau GP. Therefore, the race was over before it started for Alex Hui, Andrew Lo, Sunny Wong, and Samuel Hsieh.
On the bright side, the Suncity RCZ piloted by Paul Poon was on the pace in the CTM Macau Touring Car Cup. The Six-time event winner went the fastest by more than a second in the double red-flagged practice session. While Samson Fung and Alex Fung were unable to set meaningful times because of the red flags interference and traffic.
It was an intense battle for pole position in qualifying between Teamwork’s Paul Poon and local rival Filipe De Souza. The two swapped fastest laps a few times until the very late part of the session, when Poon set a pole lap time 0.3 seconds faster than Souza as he was pitting in. Teamwork’s Alex Fung and Samson Fung also showed good pace in fourth and fifth.
New for this year for the CTM Macau Touring Car Cup was that the ‘1.6T’ and ‘Over 1950cc’ were combined into one main race. Sunday morning race started on the cold and wet circuit, and this certainly was a disadvantage for Teamwork’s Suncity Group RCZ because they are front wheel drive while many competitors were all-wheel drive.
Paul Poon immediately lost a few positions at the rolling start drag race, but held on to his lead in the 1.6T class. Unfortunately for Samson Fung and Alex Fung they both retired early due with a mechanical failure on lap three and an accident at the Lisboa on lap six respectively, leaving Poon the only Teamwork car on the circuit.
Main local rival Filipe De Souza also retired on lap four while a brilliant battle for the 1.6T-class lead continued between Paul Poon and J. Badaraco. However, the team’s choice of wet tires proved tricky in the conditions, and he lost the lead in lap seven in the mountain section.
Once the track dried up a little, Poon was able to regain the pace but on lap ten the race was cut short by two laps due to two simultaneous accidents. This eliminated any chance for Poon to reclaim the lead and had to settle with a second position trophy, which is his third consecutive podium finishes in the past three years.
“The track was very slippery and I couldn’t even go straight because of the aquaplaning,” said Poon. “I simply didn’t have the grip I needed under braking either. I have tried my best, and I am happy with the results and more importantly everyone is safe.”