It went right to the wire! As it so often does in motorsport! The final race of the Bangsaen Grand Prix 2025, which wraps up the last day of action with its starting time just before teatime, is the headliner as the Super Car GT3 cars go head-to-head for a second – and last – shot at glory in front of huge crowds of spectators.
And what a race that turned out to be. After grabbing pole position and turning that into a stunning second place finish where they defied the additional compensation time handed out to new entrants, the largest of any car in the field, Deng Yi and Akash Nandy delivered an absolute masterclass on Sunday afternoon in a race that was filled with drama and excitement right from green lights to chequered flag.
They ran out with an almost seven second cushion to the second placed car as well as bagging the fastest lap, which was set by the Malaysian as he pushed as hard as he could possibly push the #37 Audi over the final laps of his stint to squeeze every single tenth out of his fading tyres.
His Chinese teammate took over and proceeded to made light of the pressure he was under to push throughout the second stint of the 1-hour race and get to the chequered flag first. The win was richly deserved and the result of calm, precise and ultra hard driving by this young pair and also, as so often is the case in racing, lady luck arriving late on to play her hand.
Fourth in Sunday’s Race 2 went to Henk Kiks and Sandy Stuvik, both hugely experienced here and indeed both previous winners here. They were right in the mix all race long in the #26 Porsche and two trips to the podium, that P4, added to a P5 from the previous day, was well deserved.
The other two GT3 entries, after a terrific Saturday fared less well. The #786 Audi of Kiki Sak Nana and Dieter Schmidtmann and the #11 Ferrari of Greg Bennett and Chris van der Drift both suffered DNFs.
However, both had enjoyed a great Saturday result. Nana, returning here after nearly a decade away, with Schmidtmann, totally new to Bangsaen, alongside, made light of getting up to speed to win the GT3 AM class. For Nana he was playing to the gallery, his huge fanbase ecstatic to see him back on these streets after so long.
Bennett and van der Drift also had a lot of work to do but they got stuck in and brought their car home for fourth overall.
It seemed like the stars really aligned for us on Sunday as in the 1-hour Super Car GT4 race there was a stunning result for our #32 Porsche. After a truly tough week, Iaro Razanakoto and Sataporn Verachue fought up from the back of the grid, where they had languished due to not having set a representative qualifying time, to finish P2 in GT4 AM and pull a real chunk of glory out of what had up to that point had been a week to forget.
With the Bangsaen Grand Prix 2025 now in the history books, the team immediately turn our attention to the next round of TSS The Super Series 2025, which will take us to Sepang Circuit in four and a half weeks’ time.
