Wing Hin Motorsports’ Mitchell Cheah and Naquib Azlan celebrated a double podium finish in Round 3 of the Thailand Super Series Super Compact Class at the Chang International Circuit.
After racing to a spectacular 2nd overall finish in Race 1 on Saturday (24 August 2024), Cheah and Naquib were in for an even more exhilarating Race 2 today (25 August 2024) when all the on-track dicing action took place right to the final corner of final lap of the 1-hour race.
Again having to start from 8th on the grid, Naquib quickly made his way up the grid in the first lap. He even had an attempt for the lead by going on that very first lap but received slight contact and had to recover the car after being punted off the track. He regained composure and rejoined the race in 7th,, charging his way back to 4th after 12 minutes of racing. Then, fighting for 3rd another contact bumped him off the track, this time with the Honda CRZ of T. Chanyaboot.
Naquib pitted 27 minutes into the race to hand over to Cheah who rejoined in 7th position. Cheah however, put in some incredibly blistering hot laps to progressively push him up the standings, and with one lap to go, was placed 2nd just ahead of an attacking Toyota GAZOO Racing Thailand driver Norrarat Apivart in another Yaris.
The two drivers exchanged places for 2nd place several times in the final lap and exiting the final corner, Cheah had been just ahead by a bumper’s length but the outright straight line speed Norrarat possessed saw him cross the finish line just 0.121 seconds ahead of Cheah to claim 2nd place. Winning the race and 7.9 seconds ahead was the pair of T. Thanaroj and S. Thanapattra in the YK Motorsports Honda CRZ.
“It was an incredible battle to the finish line. We knew we had a quicker car through the technical sections of the track but Norrarat had the outright straight line speed. It could have gone either way. It’s still fantastic to finish the race weekend with back to back podiums,” said Cheah.
