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The six round series, the China Circuit Championship (CCC) has completed
the first three rounds of the season. Shanghai VW's POLO scored two wins
and Dongfeng Nissan TIIDA has taken the rest so far. Consequently, ADVAN
equipped cars monopolized the podium in all three races. The point leader
after the first three events was Han Han of Shanghai VW 333 Racing. The
young and popular author who hasn't missed the podium in those three races
and he is attracting more and more attention.
Rounds four and five were originally planned to be held at Chengdu, Sichuan.
However, due to a construction delay, these two rounds were relocated to
Beijing on short notice.
Since the length of Beijing Golden Port International Circuit is only 2.4km,
the competitors of each class were divided into two groups for the qualifying
session to avoid congestion on the track. In the first practice session
held just before the qualifying session, the championship leader, Han Han,
had trouble when his engine blew out oil and the team was forced to change
the engine of his car. Because of this, he couldn't run in the second practice
session nor the qualifying session for the first group which he was originally
allocated.
In the first group, Wang Rui in the Shanghai VW's other POLO performed
well and marked the fastest time that was more than 1 sec. faster than
the followers. Dongfeng Nissan's pair, Guo Haisheng and Lin Lifeng, were
second and third respectively in their TIIDAs.
After missing on the first group's session, Han Han's car was ready just
after the second group's session started. By submitting a petition to the
race steward, he was allowed to run in the second group. Han Han jumped
in the car that was fresh from the repair work and went out to the track.
Although his best lap time was a bit shy of the time marked by his teammate
Wang Rui in the first group, it was quick enough to take the top slot in
the second session, beating two Nissan TIIDAs in the first session.
But, according to the technical regulations, every competitor is allowed
to use only two engines for the whole season and Han Han's new engine was
his third unit of this season. The regulations stipulate that if a driver
uses more than two engines in one year, the driver is penalized by adding
10 seconds to his qualifying time. Therefore, Han Han had to start the
race from the tenth grid and the front row of the grid was shared by VW
POLO and Nissan TIIDA.
In the race on Sunday afternoon, Guo Haisheng in TIIDA led the field at
Turn 1 but the pole sitter, Wang Rui's POLO, recaptured the lead position
shortly thereafter. In the following pack, Lin Lifeng lost his ground to
fourth as he was beaten by one of Dongfeng KIA's driver at the start. Furthermore,
Guo Haisheng spun off on Lap 2 and dropped back to almost the tail end
of the field.
But Guo Haisheng and Han Han, starting from the tenth grid, showed staggering
pursuit therefrom. The pair drove through the field two or three seconds
a lap quicker than the others and overtook one after another. On Lap 11,
when one-third of the race distance had past, Han Han had already moved
up to fourth and Guo Haisheng was fifth. At this point, four cars in the
top five were ADVAN equipped cars with the exception of Dongfeng KIA in
third.
Han Han and Guo Haisheng duly passed the Dongfeng KIA on Lap 20. On the
other hand, Lin Lifeng was running in second when he had a broken drive
shaft on his TIIDA and ended his race after crawling back to the pit.
Therefore, the top three was formed by Wang Rui in first, Han Han in second
and Guo Haisheng in third and the 33 lap race came to an end in this formation.
This meant that ADVAN users monopolized the podium four races running,
i.e. in all the races so far in the 2007 season.
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