Thunder Asia Mosler Racing Team makes valiant effort at Super GT race

The Thunder Asia Mosler Racing Team, featuring Singapore's own Melvin Choo, and his co-driver Martin Short, had an eventful debut weekend at Round 4 of the Super GT racing series, held at Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia from June 19th to 21st, 2009.

The team, piloting a Mosler MT900R, clocked a time of 2'11.771 in qualifying, and started on 8th place on the grid. After a good start where they rose to second place, a loss of power steering on the 5th lap dropped them down to 5th. More precious time was lost at the pit stop when the car refused to start due to a fuel pump failure. Despite the problems, the team managed to finish in 13th place in the GT300 race.

"Disappointed but what an experience! We have a very good car and were doing well before the power steering failed. Even then, we were still at the 5th position. It was when the fuel pump failed due to the heat, that we lost 5 laps due to the time spent repairing the car," said Melvin. "We came in 13th position and this is fine for our first attempt. We learnt a lot to be applied towards future races, and we will be working extra hard to solve the challenges for the next race."

Added co-driver Martin Short, "From a manufacturer's perspective, this is the hottest race we have ever done. The ambient heat of 33 degree Celsius and high humidity was unbelievable. Within the car, temperature was over 40 degree Celsius. All in all, it was a fantastic experience for us to develop solutions for the problems arising due to overheating. We will be working on all the issues back in the factory, from power steering, air-conditioning, water temperature, to fuel pumps, and we are confident of adapting our car to compete in a very hot environment."

Raja Norzaini, Thunder Asia's team manager, was positive about the experience. "On a positive note, the experience was an encouraging one. For a first attempt in the Super GT driving a Mosler, we are proud to have finished the race, and to be on pace and on par with the renowned Super GT race cars and drivers, despite our challenges. The only drawback was mainly due to mechanical faults which can be easily fixed with experience,"