The Parade Lap – November 21, 2021 | Asia Motorsports Network

The Parade Lap takes you on a quick trip around Asia providing you the highlights all in one quick read! 

TOP NEWS

With the 68th Macau Grand Prix happening this week it is a busy week for Asia Motorsports, but the top story this week came out of Europe and involves a series we don’t generally don’t spend a lot of time reporting on.  On November 16th, our Facebook feed exploded with the news 22 year old Zhou Guanyu had become the 1st Chinese driver to officially sign with a Formula One team!  Zhou will join teammate Valtteri Bottas at Alfa Romeo for the 2022 season that is set to kick off in Bahrain in March.  Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, there will be no hometown Shanghai race in 2022 with the only 2 Asia stops being Singapore and Japan in October.   This shouldn’t be a problem for Zhou as he has spent the past 10 years racing in Europe and is currently running 2nd in this years F2 standings.  We wish he and the entire Alfa Romeo team find great success in 2022!

PS – You know it’s BIG news when major media outlets like The Guardian and CNN pick up the story about a driver signing!

MOTORSPORT

The Macau Grand Prix is always a spectacular event with lots of great story lines.  Despite it being a scaled back version again, this year was no exception. We could talk about Ma Qinghua, incidentally the first Chinese driver to sit behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car when he signed as development driver back in 2012, and his Teamwork Motorsport who dominated the Galaxy Entertainment Macau Guia Race just as the had done the entire TCR Asia season. We could also talk about Charles Leong who became the first Macau driver to win his hometown race in back to back seasons when he defended his SJM Formula 4 Macau Grand Prix crown.  These are all great stories, but we want to focus on the truly incredible story of Darryl O’Young’s journey to the top of the podium in Sunday’s Sands China Macau GT Cup race.

Darryl O’Young’s journey to the top of the podium began in late October when he dashed back from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway where the Mercedes-AMG Craft Bamboo Racing team was competing in the Intercontinental GT Challenge.  His return meant 21 days of quarantine in a hotel before he could get behind the wheel again of his Z Challenger sponsored #95 Mercedes-AMG.  After nearly an entire year not racing, Darryl made it out of quarantine with a day to spare prior to the 68th Macau Grand Prix kicking off.  All of would make for a good story about determination and triumph, but we said this was an incredible story…

Where the story takes an incredible turn is during the final moments of Saturday’s race. The picture to the left shows how Darryl O’Young finished Saturday’s race when during a late caution he caught an oil patch and ended up in the wall.  Darryl was okay but the same couldn’t be said for his #95 Mercedes-AMG which suffered extensive damage to the front right side. For all intensive purposes it looked like the red flagged P2 finish in Saturday’s race would be the end of the weekend for him and the Craft Bamboo Team.  However, the limited team he had on hand due to Covid restrictions wasn’t ready to give up just yet.  They worked through the night without sleep and despite damage to the frame and no time left to align the car, Darryl O’Young was able to drive the #95 to the front of Pit Row with just minutes to spare before Sunday’s noon start.

He said afterwards that he felt an incredible amount of pressure because the team manage to pull off the unthinkable and he didn’t want to let them down.  He focused on getting a perfect start to take the lead into the first corner.  With the less than perfect drivability of the car he had to rely on his experience and familiarity with the Macau Circuit to insure no one had an opportunity to pass him.  The victory was quite emotional for him and the entire team making it a truly incredible moment in Macau Grand Prix history.

You can read more of the details of this incredible victory in the South China Morning Post’s article – Hong Kong’s O’Young seals miracle Macau Grand Prix win

In other Asia Motorsport news – The 2021 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship wrapped up their season this past weekend crowning a new Champion Toprak Razgatlioglu during their first visit to Indonesia in 24 years.  WSBK is another series we don’t spend a lot of time reporting on, but what makes this event special to us is the venue, the brand new Mandalika International Street Circuit.  The circuit is the center piece of the newly developed Mandalika Resort Area and will be the world’s first, purpose-built street circuit to host MotoGP™.  The circuit has been 4 years in the making with the Indonesia government and local partners being committed to continue with the development despite the pandemic.  You can hear more about how MRK1 Consulting, one of the partners in developing and operating the circuit managed the project during the pandemic in our Additional Insights section below.

MOD CULTURE

This weeks dive into the Mod Culture in Asia finds us in Japan as Youtuber Albo Agunday takes us inside the legendary Top Secret as his friend Japonic tries to purchase an absolutely incredible GT-R from Smoky Nagata.  What we enjoy most about this video is the history lesson Albo provides on Top Secret and it’s founder.

Best viewed directly on Youtube where you can Like, Share and Subscribe to this and other great content highlighting Motorsports and the Modification Culture through out Asia.

CARS AND COFFEE (Virtual of course)

We’re still in Bangkok, Thailand at the first Cars and Coffee in nearly 8 months.  Last week Gofza Channel did a great job of providing a sense of the vibe and energy at this event, but like many of the other videos we’ve seen since it didn’t really capture the massive size of the event.  Fortunately one of Thailand’s best photographers / videographers, Edd Ellison was also there and has down a fantastic job of capturing the shear scale of this event. So grab a coffee and sit back and enjoy as Edd Ellison takes us through last weekends meet up in Bangkok Thailand with some great tunes.  Note: our personal favorite is the Hybrid VW Beatle toward the beginning of the video.

Best viewed directly on Youtube where you can Like, Share and Subscribe to this and other great content highlighting Motorsports and the Modification Culture through out Asia.

ADDITIONAL INSIGHT

In August, SpeedShare Managing Director Benjamin Grenon had the opportunity to catch up with Mark Hughes, Managing Director, of MRK1 Consulting, specialist in development and operation of Motorsport venues, to get his insights on how his business endured during the pandemic as well as where he thinks the market is heading next.

If you’re interested in learning more about how you can expand your business in the World’s fastest growing automotive region please contact us through our corporate website www.SpeedShareltd.com.  

SEE YOU ALL ON THE NEXT LAP!