April 19, 2019

 

Yuri Kasdorp made it two wins from two as he took victory in the GPVWC Thai World Gt at Buriram.
The Team Rookie Monsters driver finished just ahead of the Idos Motorsports machine of Erhan Jajovski, with pole-sitter Kevin Ryan some twenty seconds back in third for Abruzzi ACR.

The two Aston Martins up front were separated by less than a second over the line, after fighting closely for much of the race.

Kasdorp qualified third, but started second courtesy of Hany Alsabti's 15-place penalty in the second Abruzzi ACR Vanquish. The Dutch driver made the most of his front row start as he drove around the outside of Ryan at turn three, before winning the drag race down into the sweeping left-handed at turn four.

Once Jajovski had made a similar move to take second pace, the Macedonian set about catching Kasdorp. The winner of race one at Bathurst defended the outside at turn four, Jajovski had a look up the inside and the two made contact. Kasdorp kept first whilst Jajovski spun and dropped behind Ryan.

Jajovski was back ahead of Ryan and by the time the front runners had pitted, the gap was down to three seconds. The two pitted together on lap 35, and on exit the gap had shrunk considerably. The TRM and Idos cars were nose-to-tail fo the rest of the race.

Even though the gap was almost non-existent, the only time Kasdorp ever looked in trouble was ten minutes from the end when traffic helped Jajovski to close on the run to turn three. He tried the cutback on corner exit, but the wily driving of Kasdorp shut the door before the move could become a reality.

Ryan eventually fought his way back to third after initially dropping places at a long pit stop, with Chris Shepard and TCS Off Racing finishing fourth and Matthew Beavis in the second TRM car finishing fifth, both after some intense racing.

Alsabti fought back from his penalty and a first-corner incident to take a brilliant sixth, as Joonas Raivio, Tobias Olsson, David Jundt and Georgi Negev completed the top 10. The final points positions went to Kevin Jaeger, Argo Teder, Mike Bell, Dan Kell and Phillip Morby.

The result means that Jajovski moves up to second in the championship, but still 19 points behind race winner Kasdorp. Nico Barclay - who was second - drops down the order as a result of his no score.

Team Rookie Monsters now lead the team championship by a slim five points over previous leaders Idos Motorsports, as the series moves onto the next round in Algarve.