Round 6 of China Touring Car Championship just finished yesterday in GIC. Changan Ford Racing Team captured the Manufacturer Cup title of R6 with driver Andy Yan claimed the 1st runner up followed by his team mates Rainey He and Gaoxiang Fan. This result means that Changan Ford Racing Team expanded the lead in the Manufacturer Championship to 51 points. In the driver race, the Changan Ford drivers also occupy the top three positions; Rainey He with 47 points, Andy Yan is only 2 point behind, and Tengyi Jiang is still maintaining the third position with 44 points.

The race was started under Sunny day with a light breeze. After spending a lot of time optimizing the set up to counter the heavy weight, the team got a bad news after the morning warm up session that the Federation has requested the team to put back the rear wing. So in reality, the team has to start the race with no practice data.

To make the atmosphere even more intense in the garage; mechanics from car No.4 found out there were a small oil leaking from a sensitive area. For safety reason, the mechanics made a thorough check but the pit lane already closed so Tengyi Jiang started from the pane line.

Andy and Rainey both had smoothly start, Andy was on 2nd position and Rainey was on fourth position when the cars turned into T1. Gaoxiang Fan was not that lucky and was a victim of a crash between a Honda and a Chevrolet. His steering was damaged and lost the good position. He continued to drive with a bent steering and eventually finished in fourth position.

Rainey’s car was suffering from heavy understeer, most likely from the rear wing removal, and was struggling in the first few laps. He started pushing hard after the two safety car situations, passed Han Han whose car is having electrical issues, finished third and gained valuable points for the team and himself.

Andy Yan, who had a good start, was not challenged but also not able to gain much ground on the leading Polo. “Including the start and the two safety car restarts, it is very obvious that the Polo, with 100+kg weight advantage, was able to pull away quite easy from me so I just settled myself down and not to do stupid things.”

Tengyi Jiang, after starting from the pit lane, was trying to catch up to the front group but a lock clip on the drive shaft popped out and he had to stop on lap 21. After the race, tear came down from his very emotional chief mechanic and that shows the spirit of the team; we care and it hurts when we mess up....

Team manager John Ling indicated: “I will never forget this race in GIC. Firstly we were informed that the cars had to carry another 60KG as a result of the disqualification of the Polos from R5. All the set up and data we collected from the test two weeks ago is basically wasted. Secondly, just one hour before the race, we were informed that the rear wings have to stay, so all the set up data we collected from this week’s practices and qualifying is wasted again. But thanks for the team’s hard work, we nailed all the problems and won the manufacturer Cup Title again.”

This win also marks the Changan Ford Racing Team’s 25th win and the first team to win 25 times since the inception of the Championship. Meanwhile, the team needs 3 more points in the next race to win the 2012 Manufacturer Cup Championship. Round 7 will start on Oct 13-14 in STC.