SEPANG, 7 September 2016 – Hot favourites DC Racing Ligier JSP3 won the 2016 Asian Le Mans Sprint Cup overall crown in style by winning the final race of the season on a hot Sunday afternoon at Sepang International Circuit (SIC) on 4 September and taking the drivers’ title as well for the LMP3 category.
Australian Jamie Winslow, who partnered Neale Muston for the weekend, took the individual driver’s title, garnering a total of 105 championship points to comfortably sweep aside the challenge of Filipino Ate de Jong and Britain’s Charlie Robertson, who both finished the season with 86 points.
Scheduled as one of the support races for the 2016 Sepang 1000 Kilometre Endurance Race (S1K), the race held under a sweltering noon-day sun got off to a quick start. Robertson, who was on pole in his Ginetta LMP3 machine, quickly sped off and created a wide gap from the rest of the field early on.
It was hard going for Muston, but the DC Racing driver kept a good pace, running in second spot until the Ginetta entered the pits for its pit stop, where unfortunately, the car overheated and shut down, forcing an early retirement. This left the path open for Winslow to take back the lead, which the Australian kept until the chequered flag to score his third win of the season and seal both championship titles.
Winslow, who finished third in Race 1 on Saturday, paid tribute to his partner for his massive support in winning the driver’s and the team’s overall crowns.
“The race went extraordinarily well for us, after a few issues yesterday, though we closed in on the championship yesterday, so it kind of went according to plan, but today was definitely a better day. Neale had a good start to the race. He followed the plan to tail Charlie and not lose too much time, and did exactly that. He has done a fantastic job in his first ever weekend in an LMP3 car. A big part of my championship success is down to Neale,” said Winslow.
The overall GT Cup Championship title for the 2016 Asian Le Mans Sprint Cup was won by Singaporean Graeme Dowsett while the CN category crowned Frenchman Sebastian Mailleux as this season’s overall champion.
Two other support races – the Formula Masters China Series (FMCS) and the Asia Classic Car Challenge (ACCC) saw the domination of two Australian drivers – Aidan Read and Daniel Bilski respectively.
Aidan Read of Eurasia Motorsport completed the perfect FMCS comeback with faultless wins to score a brilliant hat trick of victories in Sepang over the weekend. His sensational form upstaged championship leader Philip Hamprecht, who took second place in the final race after finishing third in the opening two races for the weekend.
The championship series will now proceed to its final round at the Penbay International Circuit in Taiwan on 15 and 16 October for what is expected to be a thrilling finale.
In the ACCC, Bilski was in superb form, winning both races. Mike Ricks took two seconds places, while Matthew Graham completed the podium for Race 1 and Race 2 saw Henk J. Kiks taking third place.
The S1K, which was held from 1 to 4 September 2016, is SIC’s second biggest endurance race and sees the participation of higher powered Touring cars, GT machines and supercars. Apart from action in the S1K, the event featured the Formula 4 South East Asia Championship, Asian Le Mans Sprint Cup, Formula Masters China Series, Asian Classic Car Challenge and S1K’s very own Independent Cup as support races.
