Mugen reign supreme in Thailand Super GT500
Ex Former Formula One duo Heikki Kovalainen and Kamui Kobayashi of Mugen seized the top podium spot in the GT500 category as the Chang Super GT Race concluded at the Chang International Circuit on Sunday.
The Thailand race was the fourth stop of the Supet GT series and attracted huge attentions from fans as ten thousands of them witnessed the event and participated in several activies since on Saturday.
Driving Lexus LC500, Kovalainen and Kobayashi started in the third grid before they speeded up to dominate from the mid race until the end with a time of 1:36.42 hours, followed by Kazuya Oshima and Felix Rosenqvist of Lexas Team Lemans Wako and Yuji Kunimoto and Kenta Yamashita of Lexus Team WedsSport.
However, Briton Jenson Button and Naoki Yamamoto of Team Kunimitsu, the Championships leaders, were no where near their best as they settled at 11th.
In GT300 event, Katsuyuki Hiranaka and Hironobu Yasuda of Gainer won the race with the time of 1:38.01 hours, followed by Koki Saga and Kohei Hirate of APR Racing and Hiroki Yoshimoto and Ritomo Miyata of LM Corsa-OTG Motor Sports.
Driving Bentley Continental, Est Cola’s Kantadhee Kusiri and Frenchman Maxime Jousse, one of the two representatives from Thailand, came at 14th while Nattavude Charoensukhawatana and Nattapong Horthongkum of Arto Panther Team, driving Lexus RC F GT3, finished at 15th out of 23 participating teams.
Arto Panther Team manager Suttipong Smittachartch said: “The race was exciting from start to finish. Every team is so tough. Finishing 15th is our best result this year. I’m happy with that.”
Nattvude said: “I’m a bit tired but I’m happy with the best position we achieved this year. We were under pressure and really gave out best put there.”
