The Eurasia Motorsport entered LMP3 prototype of Yamanaka/Read had topped the timesheets throughout most of practice as the pairing worked on a good car setup for the race, opting in qualifying to save tyres for the race over an outright lap time, which would see Nobuya line up P6 on the grid for the start of the 4-hour race.
Another clean start for the Japanese in temperatures of 34 degrees saw Nobu running well in the pack largely maintaining the pace set down as the target by the team to keep the car in contention for later in the race and after a hot but trouble-free stint of over 1 hour and ten minutes in the car Nobu brought the car in to handover to Read.
Read then got to work building on Nobu‘s efforts to bring the car up through the field for the next hour bringing the car back into the pits in fourth position for Nobu to re-join the race for his final short 20-minute run to complete the minimum ‘Bronze rated’ driver drive time.
It was now that the benefit of saving tyres in qualifying bore fruit as Nobu was able to show his best pace to date setting a very credible 1.33 second lap just over two seconds away from the fastest lap of the race overall and extremely competitive in comparison to his fellow amateur drivers, which considering Nobu’s relative inexperience at this level bodes well for the future in the Asian Series and beyond.
With Read pushing in the car to the chequered flag, the pair were satisfied and took comfort from much of what had been achieved over the weekend.
“I am quite pleased with my performance this weekend,” said Yamanaka after the race. “I always think I can and should do better and will keep trying hard to do so, I am pleased with my fastest lap but would like to be more consistent to bring my overall stint time down a bit next time in Sepang. Aidan drove a very strong and clean race and I would like to compliment him on that.”
The final round of the Asian Le Mans series takes place at the Sepang International Circuit, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on the 22nd-24th February 2019.
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