Crazy weekend for Solomon at Ordos

July 11, 2013 - PRLog -- Crazy weekend for Solomon at Ordos

Rnd#3 Formula Masters China Series

Ordos International Circuit, China (5-7 July)

For Eurasia Motorsport’s Matt Solomon, it appeared that experience and the availability of officials were ultimately the big keys to finding success in Ordos during his third event in the Formula Masters China Series; one of those things he was able to control, the other - sadly - he, nor his fellow racers had any control over..

“I was looking forward to my maiden event at Ordos, but the weekend had an auspicious start - perhaps a sign of things to come,” Matt explained.

“Ordos is a city situated in Inner Mongolia, and it’s an interesting place, it’s a bit like a ghost town with a population of around 100,000 people and a capacity for up to 3-million.

“We arrived on Wednesday, but only the team manager and one of the mechanics were there as the other team members had been delayed. By Thursday though we had everything running and were ready for the five-scheduled practice sessions - unfortunately we only had two!

“I used the opening session to acclimatize myself with the layout of the circuit which is quite special. The layout is very good and it’s an awesome track to drive, but because it’s essentially in the middle of the desert there’s lots of sand on the circuit so it’s very slippery. That means there’s really only one ideal racing line, and if you’re outside that, you suffer from excess sand on your tyres and it becomes pretty tricky - stark contrast to the high grip of Sepang and Shanghai which I’d experienced previously.

“This was a new challenge for me, because I hadn’t experienced that kind of thing before. In session two I managed to get within half a second of the leaders, which I felt was good, all things considered.

After that things started to get interesting.

“There was plenty of activity from officials who postponed any further running after our second session, when it became apparent that there were no Marshalls or medical team at the circuit. That put an end to our 1^st day of practice in Ordos.

“To the organizers, credit, they gave us an extra one hour session on Friday, just prior to qualifying to compensate for the previous days cancelations. Unfortunately the session prior to that didn’t go as well as I would have liked - I pushed a bit too hard and made a few mistakes with my race lines and this made grip difficult, so it was hard to get into a good rhythm.


“Qualifying didn’t go as well as we would have hoped. Oversteer couldn’t be dialed out during either qualifying session, and that impacted on my confidence to really push the car.

“Finally I qualified sixth in both sessions, however I suffered a questionable penalty to my fastest time for the opening session, a result of a yellow flag being displayed in the first sector. There seemed to be no justification for the flag or the penalty. It wasn’t just me that was affected, there were six drivers penalized - it was all quite messy, and the flags were in the wrong places, but that’s how it works sometimes, so I dropped back to seventh.

“I was probably a bit further off the leaders than I’d hoped for in both sessions, which was as much down to experience at Ordos as anything.

“Immediately prior to our 1st race the officials discovered a loose drainage cover at turn 3 had created a safety issue, so they set about rectifying the problem, which cost almost four hours and forced us to make a start behind the Safety Car.

“Off P7 I had a few dices with the guys in front of me, but as the race wore on they got slightly away. I was able to maintain my position and pull away from the drivers behind me, but I couldn’t do anything about closing the gap to the leaders.

“Following the finish, the officials postponed the 2nd race to the following day, Sunday, because they’d lost so much time in the overall schedule.

“Sadly Sunday continued much the same way that the opening couple of days had, with dramas before we even made the circuit. It turned out that the CTCC (Chinese Touring Car Championship) teams decided they wanted to be on the circuit for their race at the same time as ours, so that created some angst between the two categories. Whilst sitting in my car in pit lane for nearly an hour, I waited for the arguments to finish.

“Eventually they sorted it out and we got underway. Off the standing start Bo Yuan slipped around me, but I took him back the following lap. The team had made some changes that morning to give me some more stability in the rear and more understeer, which helped me a lot.

“Throughout the race my laps got quicker and quicker and I started to close on my new team-mate for the weekend - Formula Renault NEC regular, Tanart Sathienthirakul.

“It was great having him there for the weekend, as his experience gave me valuable data to benchmark and work from and there’s no question it helped me improve throughout the weekend.

“In the end I was unable to stick with him as he moved his way through to third, but I was able to maintain my position again inside the top seven.

“Sadly due to lots of uncertainty, the series organizers elected to cancel our final race in favor of running an additional race at the next round at Inje, South Korea. “There were a lot of positives that came out from the weekend, especially having a benchmark now to work from. It’s clear that Ordos is a circuit that rewards the experienced drivers, so hopefully the next time I’m there I can call on that experience and have a chance to fight for a podium.

“Now the focus is on Inje, and with just 1 month until we’re in Korea, I’ll be working hard to make that next forward step towards getting my first podium for the season.”


Championship points (after round two of six)

1. Afiq Yazid (106 points), 2. Raj Bharath (83), 3.  Aidan Wright (79), 4. Akash Nandy (70), 5. Ren Nagabuchi (65), 6. Matt Solomon (45)

2013 Formula Masters China Series calendar

Rnd#1 - Zhuhai International Circuit, China (10-12 May)

Rnd#2 - Shanghai International Circuit, China (24-26 May)

Rnd#3 - Ordos International Circuit, China (5-7 July)

Rnd#4 - Inje Auto Theme Park, Korea (9-11 August)

Rnd#5 - Sepang International Circuit, Malaysia (13-15 September)

Rnd#6 - Shanghai International Circuit, China (25-27 October)

Invitational - Macau Grand Prix, Macau (9-10 November)

Craft Racing, SUPERGA, Tunewear, Sideways Driving Club, Play, Maximal Concepts, Gravity Partnership, The Chinese Timekeeper, Pangaea Creative, RacerLink, Rush Sports Marketing & Investment, LDC, Bell Racing and ORG Racing proudly support Matthew Solomon.