Belgium’s Spa Francorchamps circuit remains a strong place for Malaysia’s Viper Niza Racing Team. They achieved a tough 4th place in the GT3-AM Class and 7th overall in Round 2 of the Michelin 24H Series.
This performance puts Viper Niza Racing in a joint 1st place in the overall Michelin 24H European Series standings (GT3-AM Class) with Hofor Racing and HAAS RT at 56 points with three more events to go. The team is also tied for 5th in the overall GT3 Class standings, just 10 points off the leader.
Although the team aimed for a third podium finish at Spa Francorchamps – having been 2nd in the GT3 AM Class last year and winning the PRO/AM class at the inaugural TCR SPA500 in 2019 – Viper Niza Racing made a strong recovery from qualifying 15th overall and starting 9th in the GT3-AM Class.
The race consisted of two parts – Race 1 was five-and-a-half hours on Saturday, followed by Race 2, which lasted six-and-a-half hours on Sunday.
Competing against 40 cars, the drivers Douglas Khoo, Dominic Ang, and Aaron Lim earned a small win by being the third highest placed team among the top 10 finishers in a Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO, while McLaren, Audi, and Porsche dominated the race.
Starting from 15th, Ang led the team to 5th in Class at the end of the first hour. They finished Race 1 in 8th overall and 4th in Class.
In Race 2, Viper Niza Racing stepped up its speed, reaching 6th overall in the seventh hour before finishing 7th overall and 4th in Class, completing 239 laps. They posted the fastest lap time of 2 minutes and 17.985 seconds on the 7.004 km circuit, being nearly two seconds slower per lap than the winning Optimum Motorsport McLaren 720S GT3 EVO and just a second slower than the GT3-AM Class winner, the Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II from HAAS RT. Viper Niza Racing was just two laps short of reaching their goal of a podium finish in the GT3-AM Class, which went to HAAS RT with the Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II.
“A third successive podium finish eluded us, but Spa Francorchamps continues to be a circuit that we are very fond of and is strong at. We had a clean run and our pit stops were good. We just got a little unlucky with the last Code 60 (safety car conditions) which allowed HAAS RT to take advantage to refuel. Considering the very high level of competition this year, we are happy to go away with 4th place in Class and valuable championship points added to our European campaign in the Michelin 24H Series. With three more rounds in the championship, every point matters,” said Team Principal and lead driver Khoo.