Porsche Carrera Cup Asia Returns to a Full Asia Calendar for 2023 | Asia Motorsports Network

After spending the last two seasons running a China only schedule, Porsche Carrera Cup Asia’s 2023 provisional calendar shows they fully intend on returning to a full Asia schedule.  With stops in Malaysia (twice), Korea, Japan, Thailand, Singapore and China they planning to become the 1st Asia series to fully return to a normal schedule.  It will be interesting to see how some of the young talent who rose up to become Chinese stars over the last couple of years stack up against the influx of international talent this season.

Asia Rising Star Daniel Lu Wenlong, who at just 16 was selected as the 2018 Porsche China Junior, saw his hopes of following Earl Bamber’s foot steps of becoming a full Porsche factory driver delayed by China’s border restrictions.  After finishing 4th in 2019 against a full international field, he bounced back from the cancelled 2020 season by winning the 2021 China only crown beating out Yue Cui in the final race of the season.  After a strong start in 2022 that had him in 2nd place after the first 3 rounds he struggled the rest of the way finishing disappointing 7th overall.  The 2021 runner up, Yue Cui also struggled in the 2nd half of 2022 after not finishing any of the last 4 rounds he ended up 9th overall.

The PCCA 2022 season belonged to Leo Ye Hongli who spent his pre covid career racing in the Blancpain GT World Challenge Asia series.  He finished the 2021 season in brilliant fashion winning two of the final three rounds in Shanghai with a disqualification in the 3rd round keeping him from victory in all three.  Heading into 2022 he was clearly the man to beat and he completely dominated winning the first 6 rounds of the abbreviated 8 round schedule.  Luo Kailuo, whose last competitive racing appears to be the 2018 Asia Formula Renault series where he finished 2nd, beat out Kang Ling, 2019 Asia LeMans LMP2 3rd place finisher, for 2nd place by winning the final 2 rounds.

With the official test days just over 2 months away in Sepang we look for a flurry of team and driver announcements as the field for 2023 sets itself.  Time will tell whether racing against domestic competition was a hinderance for these Chinese drivers.