The Merdeka Millennium Endurance Race held at the Sepang F1 Circuit marked Craft Racing AMR’s first competitive outing with their new V12 Vantage GT3 after they'd claimed pole at Le Mans in the Aston Martin Racing Festival.

The team’s new Aston Martin Vantage GT3 ran faultlessly during the race but lost an hour due to repairs needed after the car after it was hit by another competitor. The team fought their way back to fifth place with Tomonobu Fujii posting the fastest lap of the race in the process.

Frank Yu took a light to flags win today in his Craft Eurasia AMR Aston Vantage GT3 car at the Sepang F1 Circuit in Malaysia. Team mate, Samson Chan, entered using his Ginetta GT50Z GT3 car,  had looked like he would finish on the podium before an off at Turn 9 relegated him to fourth.

Frank drove a faultless race to lead from the start to win by almost a lap, his only problem being dealing with lapping slower cars. Samson
had a more difficult weekend with the Ginetta. He did well to qualify third and made a good start to move to second place on the opening lap. He ran in a comfortable second for the first five laps before going off at Turn 9 hitting the barrier and suffering extensive front end damage. Despite the damage he managed to continue the race and he drove really well to claw his way back to 4th place at the end, rapidly closing on third place.

The team’s new Aston Martin Vantage GT3 ran faultlessly during the race but for an hour lost to repair the car after it was assaulted by another competitor. The accident happened in the third hour and the team fought its way back to fifth place, Tomonobu Fujii posting the fastest lap of the race in the process.

Practice times had seen the car quickest and the team was hopeful of gaining fastest time in qualifying. However a gearbox malfunction intervened and saw the car line up in fourth place for the 12 noon start in blazingly hot conditions. Fujii started and whilst the lead Ferrari sprinted away he was happy to sit on the tail of the two Mercedes cars. The latter had an all-pro driver line-up whilst for this race the team was running only one professional driver therefore outright victory could only be obtained if the Mercedes hit problems.

Fujii handed over to Alain Li for the second stint and he drove well to keep the pro-driver in the now fourth placed LKM Porsche in sight. Frank Yu took over for the third stint and did well to catch and pass the LKM Racing Porsche, now driven by their sole amateur. However in what seemed like a moment of brain fade the driver of the Porsche braked far too late for turn one, slid over the apex grass and harpooned the Aston Martin ‘wheel to wheel’. The impact broke the front suspension sub-frame on the car whilst the Porsche survived to continue.

The car was pushed back into the garage and the team did a fantastic job to replace the front sub-frame in 65 minutes. “Amazing” was the opinion of the AMR representative, it’s a job that normally requires a whole day and requires the engine to be removed. To applause from the team’s supporters the car rejoined the race with Fujii at the wheel. All three drivers then ran faultlessly to the flag, finally taking fifth place with a few minutes to go with Fujii behind the wheel.

“The two Mercedes finished one-two and ironically the Porsche which inflicted the damage on us was third. Fastest lap demonstrated the car has the speed to win and the fact that, accident apart, the car ran faultlessly gives us great confidence for the future” reported Team Principal Mark Goddard. “Fujii demonstrated he is one of the fastest drivers in GT racing and Frank and Alain both demonstrated they are amongst the best amateur drivers in the region. Frank was obviously disappointed after the accident but he was a completely innocent victim and the other driver came to apologize later.”

Craft Eurasia celebrated its appointment as an Official Aston Martin Racing Partner Team by rolling out its new Vantage GT3 car at the Sepang F1 Circuit in Malaysia in preparation for the MME 12 Hour race which will be held on September 1st. The car was shaken down by Fairuz Fauzy, the experienced Malaysian star setting a competitive race time on his first timed lap. The car will be raced by Frank Yu, Alain Li and Tomonobu Fujii.

Last year the team finished the iconic Asian endurance event in sixth place with the Ford GT3 and we are confident a top three placing is possible with the new car. “If we can stay out of trouble the car has the pace to compete for a podium finish” reported Mark Goddard of Craft Eurasia Racing. “In just one day the new car is setting very competitive lap times and with the great support we are receiving from Aston Martin Racing it gives the whole team confidence that we will be a real factor in this race”.

Official practice starts on August 30th with qualifying the following day. The race will start at midday on Saturday September 1st and end at midnight.