Sepang saw a majestic weekend for EvansGP star Alex Sawer who put his car into pole position in both qualifying sessions on Saturday morning and then set off to dominance by clinching all three race victories in very different circumstances to commence his F4 South East Asia campaign in magnificent fashion.
In the first race, light rain before the start triggered a safety car launch and after two laps the field raced away, but a spin from Joshua Berry saw the BlackArts Racing driver buried in the gravel trap at turn 3. The safety car returned for a single lap, and then the race resumed with Alex Sawer trying to extend an advantage out front. Seth Gilmore came under early pressure from Inigo Anton who was acquitting himself well as a rookie, but Rishon Rajeev found the limit at turn 3 and like his team-mate spun off the road. This time he was able to save the car and rejoin albeit at the back, he would eventually recover to finish P7 after passing Thomas Yu Lee in the closing stages.
Sawer eventually raised his pace and was able to lap consistently quicker than his opponents eventually finishing nearly 6 seconds clear of his team-mate Seth Gilmore to win the opening race of the season, with Inigo Anton claiming the Rookie Cup and third overall to start his season on a high note. Wang Zhongwei and Cheng Meng enjoyed a great battle all the way through the race and traded sector times throughout, but the former would remain ahead of the latter at the flag with Ben Nguyen coming home sixth in his first ever car race.
For race 2, Wang Zhongwei started from pole position but was immediately eclipsed by Inigo Anton around the outside into turn one whilst a slight nudge from Seth Gilmore in the first bend caused damage to both drivers. Alex Sawer leapt ahead of his team-mate into second whilst Wang and Gilmore would both eventually limp back to the pits with damage, Wang retiring and Gilmore rejoining at the back where he would sadly remain.
Anton would make life hard for Sawer and fought valiantly to thwart the Vietnamese for half a lap, but once Sawer moved ahead there was no stopping the Evans GP man who pulled a clear gap ahead of the Filipino, who in turn would clinch another rookie win. Rishon Rajeev was determined to make up for the disappointment of race one and stormed through the field to go from P7 on the grid to P3 at the flag. Another man on a charge was Cheng Meng who despite a slow start worked his way to P5.
As soon as he met with Ben Nguyen however, he found a worthy adversary and for the last ten minutes the rookie driver for BlackArts dealt with the pressure admirably and sustained the intense challenge of racing throughout to clinch P4 with a mature and calm drive following a herculean effort. Joshua Berry also delivered well after the previous day’s action, as he raced fairly and strongly against Thomas Yu Lee to beat him home to the finish line. Sadly post race, two of the BlackArts drivers Inigo Anton and Joshua Berry were excluded from the results for registering as underweight. This promoted Rajeev to P2 and Nguyen to P3, which also gave the Vietnamese talent a rookie win.
Race 3 was certainly a dramatic encounter from the start, as slow launches from both Sawer and Anton on the front row tightened up the pack into turn one. Sawer managed to protect his lead whilst Rishon Rajeev moved ahead of Anton to grab P2, whist Seth Gilmore bounced back from a grid penalty to move into P4 early on. First the Australian made his move on Anton to take third and then a furious battle with Rajeev resulted in the two men locking wheels on the main straight. It was an accident waiting to happen, but somehow both men controlled their cars and continued with Gilmore now ahead.
Just as the drivers were finding out what their tyres could give them in the closing stages the heavens opened and the rain poured onto the circuit. The safety car was called to keep the pack safe, but the aquaplaning the drivers faced was horrendous. Thomas Yu Lee and Cheng Meng retreated to the pits in order to change tyres, whilst both Ben Nguyen spun off under safety car after coping with a drive-through penalty for a start infringement and a faulty radio. Joshua Berry also spun in the torremtial downpour but couldn’t continue. The race would be red-flagged under safety car and with 80% of the race distance completed, it was declared a result and the race did not resume.
So Alex Sawer completed a hat-trick of victories, Rajeev and Gilmore scored a pair of podiums and two men – Anton and Nguyen – sowed the seeds of an exciting rookie cup challenge for the title. The drivers will reconvene at Buriram in Thailand in three weeks time, where they’ll be joined by Pakelo Star Performance and their two young prodigies Ayrton Asdathorn and Worapong Aiemwichan.
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