Butler Takes Smash And Grab Win!
Ashley Butler celebrated only his 2nd career victory at Sepeng yesterday after surviving a destructive race.
It was a Midland front row for the start of the race with rain showers all over the circuit and the odd flash of lightening, it was sure to be an eventful race. Off the start AlMomen crept off the line loosing a number of places before finding first, into the first corner Allman in the BMW and Dubois in the Williams had a coming together over 5th place, Allman ended up pointing the wrong way whilst Dubois drove on as if nothing had happened! At the end of the first lap it was a Ferrari in the lead, Chris Taylor's Ferrari who cleanly overtook Hanon into the hairpin.
Lap 5, the weather was whipping around making small streams on the circuit, second placed Brad Horton exited the race after his rear wing failed on the back straight causing the Honda to dive backwards into the wall. Horton was fine, the Honda on the otherhand, was not. Now they had concerns over team mate Blake Haswell's car. Lap 10 saw controversy as Herman Chang's McLaren was taken out by the Renault of Duncan Hutchison, the incident went to the stewards but no penalties was given. Either way, Chang was out.
After the resulted saftey car period, the race started again on lap 14 but this seemed to have tricked the McLaren team when they called in Davidson to change tyres, of course as all the other cars got to speed, Davidson fell to 18th from 2nd. AlMomen was in the lead amazingly after his start, behind him was Beyens, Baciu, Allman, Kawasie and the struggling Hutchison. Haswell and Hanon rounded out the top 8. However the Aussie would go on a rampage on the next lap overtaking an amazing 4 cars in a single lap jumping him to 3rd. He didn't stop there and made short work of Jef Beyens in the Renault, he now had his sights set on the race lead. The eventual pass took place on lap 22 into the first corner, the crowd jumped up in celebration as the Season 2 champion took the lead. Also on that lap, McLarens poor weekend came to a early end when Davidson lost the back of the car into turn 11 causing his first DNF of the season.
2 Laps later Allman pulled up with steering issues and became the fourth retirement of the race. Haswell pitted on lap 28, obviously on a one stopper but managed to keep the lead showing the Australian's true pace. Lap 32 saw retirement number 6 well Bahrain winner Hanon went off track with a suspension failure, obviously annoyed he even had a go at the marshalls! 2 laps later Taylor had a collision with Whitcomb whilst attempting to pass, both cars seemed to have damage but was able to continue. Then on lap 37 a major surprise took place when Blake Haswell lost the Honda whilst in the lead and planted it into the tyre wall, he was surely on for the win.
Retirement number 7 took place on lap 39 when Duncan Hutchison threw the Renault into the gravel ending a dissapointing race for him, 9 laps later and there was a great battle for the lead between Dubois and Ashley Butler in the Ferrari, Butler had been catching the Williams at around a second a lap at it was a pretty easy pass down the backstraight for the first time in the race, he was leading and never gave it up. In the remaining 8 laps Almomen had a tyre failure and fell out of a points finish whilst Lovett was the final retirement after a throttle failure. In total 8 cars failed to finish.
37 percent setup, rock on!
