2014 Asian Le Mans Series

2014 Asian Le Mans Series season
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The 2014 Asian Le Mans Series was the third season of the Automobile Club de l'Ouest's Asian Le Mans Series, the fourth 24 Hours of Le Mans-based series created by the ACO, following the American Le Mans Series (since merged with the Rolex Sports Car Series to form the United SportsCar Championship), the European Le Mans Series and the FIA World Endurance Championship. The four event season began at the Inje Speedium on 20 July 2014 and ended at Sepang International Circuit in Selangor on 7 December 2014.^[1]

In the main LMP2 class, defending champions OAK Racing Team Total won all four races during the season to win both championship titles on offer. David Cheng – who won the class title in 2013 – and Ho-Pin Tung won the drivers' championship title, and were joined by Keiko Ihara at Fuji and Yuan Bo at Sepang. Chang and Tung finished 53 points clear of John Hartshorne and Pu Jun Jin, who drove for Eurasia Motorsport. Similarly in the CN class, Craft-Bamboo Racing won all four races against class rivals Team Avelon Formula and ATL Wolf Asia. Kevin Tse was the only driver that was a part of the Craft-Bamboo Racing team at every meeting, and thus claimed the championship by 50 points ahead of Denis Lian, who took a trio of runner-up finishes with Team Avelon Formula. Tse was joined by Mathias Beche (Inje and Fuji), Frank Yu (Inje and Sepang), Samson Chan (Fuji and Shanghai), Naoki Yokomizo (Shanghai) and Jonathan Venter (Sepang) for his victories.

The GT class was the most competitive of the series, with three different entries sharing the four victories. Fuji winners Jun San Chen and Tatsuya Tanigawa, driving for the AAI-Rstrada team, were crowned champions by seven points ahead of team-mates and Inje winners Hanchen Chen and Marco Seefried. Clearwater Racing won the final two races with Mok Weng Sun a part of both victories. He was joined by Keita Sawa and Matt Griffin in Shanghai, and Hiroshi Hamaguchi and Richard Wee in Sepang. Ryohei Sakaguchi (Inje) and Carlo van Dam (Fuji) were third drivers in the respective AAI-Rstrada winning cars. The GT-Am class saw just two entries, both at the Fuji event and both fielded by China's The Emperor Racing. One of the cars was withdrawn, and thus the sister car of Giorgio Sanna, Akihiko Nakaya – who was moved from the withdrawn car to replace Jiang Xin – and Max Wiser won the class.

Regulation changes

The top class of the series continued to be LMP2. The LMGTE and GTC categories were combined, along with Super GT GT300 class vehicles, into a single performance balanced GT category. Silver and bronze level drivers were required in the amateur division. A new class, replacing the LMPC category which was not utilized in 2013, allowed a variety of Group CN cars to compete with standardized Honda engines. These cars are eligible for competition through 2017. At the end of the season, the first place team in LMP2 and the top two teams in GT received automatic invitations to the 2015 24 Hours of Le Mans. The requirement for all competitors to have at least one driver from Asia was expanded to include any drivers from the Australasia region. To help reduce operational costs for the teams, only two crew members were allowed to be involved in a tyre change.^[1]

Calendar

The 2014 calendar was revealed during the 2013 3 Hours of Sepang. The second round was to be held alongside the fifth round of the 2014 Super GT season at Fuji Speedway.^[2] After being removed from the provisional 2013 calendar the 3 Hours of Shanghai returned, racing at the same event alongside the tenth round of the 2014 World Touring Car Championship season.^[3] The season opening round at Inje Speedium was originally scheduled to be held on 6 July, but was later rescheduled to 20 July.

The schedule was revised again on 9 May with the round at Fuji being moved back three weeks and no longer on the same weekend as Super GT. As well as this, a round at the Buriram United International Circuit in Thailand was confirmed, replacing a round scheduled for the Zhuhai International Circuit.^[4] On 12 October, the round at the Buriram United International Circuit was removed from the calendar with no replacement.^[5]

Rnd	Race	Circuit	Date
1	3 Hours of Inje	Inje Speedium, Inje, South Korea	20 July
2	3 Hours of Fuji	Fuji Speedway, Oyama, Japan	31 August
3	3 Hours of Shanghai	Shanghai International Circuit, Jiading, China	11 October
4	3 Hours of Sepang	Sepang International Circuit, Selangor, Malaysia	7 December

Teams and drivers

LMP2

Team	Car	Engine	No.	Drivers	Tyre	Rounds
OAK Racing Team Total[6]	Morgan LMP2	Judd HK 3.6 L V8	1	David Cheng	M	All
				Ho-Pin Tung		All
				Keiko Ihara[7]		2
				Yuan Bo		4
Eurasia Motorsport[8]	Oreca 03	Nissan VK45DE 4.5 L V8	27	John Hartshorne	M	All
				Richard Bradley		1–2
				Tacksung Kim		1
				Pu Jun Jin		2–4
				James Winslow		3–4

CN

Team	Car	Engine	No.	Drivers	Tyre	Rounds
Team Avelon Formula	Wolf GB08	Honda 2.0 L I4	21	Denis Lian	M	2–4
				William Lok		2
				James Mitchell		2
				Guglielmo Belotti		3
				Sean Hudspeth		4
ATL Wolf Asia[9]	Wolf GB08	Honda 2.0 L I4	45	Dominic Ang	M	1
				Gilbert Ang		1
Craft-Bamboo Racing[10]	Ligier JS53	Honda 2.0 L I4	77	Kevin Tse	M	All
				Mathias Beche		1–2
				Frank Yu		1, 4
				Samson Chan		2–3
				Naoki Yokomizo		3
				Jonathan Venter		4

GT

Team	Car	Engine	No.	Drivers	Tyre	Rounds
Python[11]	Ferrari 458 Italia GT3	Ferrari F142 4.5 L V8	7	Zou Si Rui	M	1
				Xu Wei		1
Clearwater Racing[12]	Ferrari 458 Italia GT3	Ferrari F142 4.5 L V8	33	Weng Sun Mok	M	3–4
				Matt Griffin		3
				Keita Sawa		3
				Hiroshi Hamaguchi		4
				Richard Wee		4
AAI-Rstrada[13][14]	Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3	Mercedes-Benz 6.2 L V8	90	Yu Lam	M	All
				Takamitsu Matsui		All
				Takeshi Tsuchiya		All
	BMW Z4 GT3	BMW 4.4 L V8	91	Jun-San Chen		All
				Tatsuya Tanigawa		All
				Ollie Millroy		1, 3–4
				Carlo van Dam		2
			92	Han-Chen Chen		1, 3–4
				Ryohei Sakaguchi		1, 4
				Marco Seefried		1, 3–4
				Jörg Müller		3
	Nissan GT-R GT3	Nissan 3.8 L V6		Han-Chen Chen		2
				Ryohei Sakaguchi		2
				Marco Seefried		2

GT Am

Team	Car	Engine	No.	Drivers	Tyre	Rounds
The Emperor Racing	Lamborghini Gallardo	Lamborghini 5.2L V10	11	Jiang Xin	M	2
				Max Wiser		2
				Giorgio Sanna		2
			82	Akihiko Nakaya		2
				Hideshi Matsuda		2
				Hironori Takeuchi		2

Season results

Rnd.	Circuit	LMP2 Winning Team	CN Winning Team	GT Winning Team	Results
		LMP2 Winning Drivers	CN Winning Drivers	GT Winning Drivers
1	Inje	No. 1 OAK Racing Team Total	No. 77 Craft-Bamboo Racing	No. 92 AAI-Rstrada	Report
		David Cheng Ho-Pin Tung	Mathias Beche Kevin Tse Frank Yu	Hanchen Chen Ryohei Sakaguchi Marco Seefried
2	Fuji	No. 1 OAK Racing Team Total	No. 77 Craft-Bamboo Racing	No. 91 AAI-Rstrada	Report
		David Cheng Ho-Pin Tung Keiko Ihara	Mathias Beche Kevin Tse Samson Chan	Jun San Chen Tatsuya Tanigawa Carlo van Dam
3	Shanghai	No. 1 OAK Racing Team Total	No. 77 Craft-Bamboo Racing	No. 33 Clearwater Racing	Report
		David Cheng Ho-Pin Tung	Naoki Yokomizo Kevin Tse Samson Chan	Mok Weng Sun Keita Sawa Matt Griffin
4	Sepang	No. 1 OAK Racing Team Total	No. 77 Craft-Bamboo Racing	No. 33 Clearwater Racing	Report
		David Cheng Ho-Pin Tung Yuan Bo	Jonathan Venter Kevin Tse Frank Yu	Mok Weng Sun Hiroshi Hamaguchi Richard Wee

References

1. "2014 Asian Le Mans Series". Asian Le Mans Series. 10 December 2013. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
2. Dagys, John (7 December 2013). "2014 Schedule, New Class Structure Announced". Sportscar365 (John Dagys Media). Retrieved 10 May 2014.
3. O'Rourke, Mick (7 December 2013). "2014 WTCC CALENDAR APPROVED BY WMSC". BTCC Blogs. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
4. Dagys, John (9 May 2014). "Asian LMS to Race in Thailand". Sportscar365 (John Dagys Media). Retrieved 10 May 2014.
5. Dagys, John (12 October 2014). "Buriram Asian LMS Round Canceled". Sportscar365 (John Dagys Media). Retrieved 12 October 2014.
6. "OAK Racing will be back to defend its 5tle in the Asian Le Mans Series!". endurance-info.com. 5 April 2014. Retrieved 9 April 2014.
7. Dagys, John (22 August 2014). "Ihara Joins OAK Team TOTAL for Fuji". Sportscar365 (John Dagys Media Group, LLC). Retrieved 22 August 2014.
8. "Eurasia Planning LMP2, CN Programs". sportscar365.com. 21 June 2014. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
9. "ATLANTIC RACING AND THE WOLF GB08 IN THE ASIAN LE MANS SERIES". Wolf Racing Cars. 28 January 2014. Retrieved 9 April 2014.
10. "Craft Racing and Bamboo Engineering merge to form new global race team". endurance-info.com. 8 April 2014. Retrieved 9 April 2014.
11. "Entry List". Asian Le Mans Series. 11 July 2014. Retrieved 11 July 2014.
12. "Entry List". Asian Le Mans Series. 8 October 2014. Retrieved 8 October 2014.
13. "Ollie Millroy to spearhead AAI Motorsport’s Asian Le Mans Series challenge". endurance-info.com. 29 March 2014. Retrieved 9 April 2014.
14. "AAI Motorsports Reveals Three-Car GT Program". sportscar365.com. 9 April 2014. Retrieved 10 April 2014.

External links

• Asian Le Mans Series Official Website