An excellent weekend as B-Quik Absolute Racing joined the second round of Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia by AWS 2024, the Thailand based team emerging from its one off entry into its ‘home’ round truly delighted to score a podium finish.
For the challenge of the biggest and most competitive GT3 series in Asia, one that’s brimming with top level teams and factory backed professional drivers, we chose the pairing of team leader Henk Kiks and Australian racing driver Rodney Jane, the latter appearing in black and yellow for the first time ever.
With an entry secured for the AM class there was all to play for but a huge challenge in store for both drivers and all the team in this world class series.
In Saturday’s Race 1 a lap 1 spin to avoid an incident just ahead cost the #26 Audi R8 LMS GT3 evo II valuable time and dented our hopes of reaching for a podium in the 1 hour race, which was held in very hot and dry conditions.
However, a strong fightback to fourth place was a great result and clearly with the pace of the drivers and car we showed we could have been pushing for the podium but for the early unfortunate incident.
So, we looked towards Race 2 with optimism but with the knowledge that we would have to dig really deep to take something away.
And come Sunday it all worked out perfectly. Incredibly tough, gritty and determined driving from Kiks and Jane from green lights to chequered flag in the late morning race, door to door fights with rivals on track and a relentless determination that we wanted to be on the podium at all costs, everything came right as we went one place better than Race 1 to finish third and on the podium, a result that finally swung solidly our way in the dying minutes of the race.
This one was really satisfying.
Now, after two consecutive race weekends at Buriram, a tired but happy team heads back to our base in Bangkok and we start preparing for the biggest race and most prestigious in Thailand as the Bangsaen Grand Prix is next up!