Lo Sze Ho at the wheel of a Hyundai i30N TCR was the fastest yesterday in both free practice sessions in this year’s Guia race for touring cars, running under the banner of the TCR Asia Challenge.
The Hong Kong driver dominated both sessions, closing the second yesterday afternoon with the best time of 2:33.679. He was 1.244 seconds faster than Macau’s Billy Lo in an Audi RS3 in a troubled session that ended prematurely due to an already world-famous car pileup.
This time the mega crash, involving many cars, happened at Faraway Hill bend in an area with a very tight turn and no visibility from those coming downhill from the Solitude Esses.
Before that, Lo had already been showing dominance throughout the day, topping the timesheet of the FP1 session and doing the same on FP2.
In the first session, Lo was seconded by another Hong Kong driver, Andy Yan, in a Honda Civic Type R (FK7) who then dropped to third on FP2. The third best on FP1 was local driver Filipe de Souza in an Audi RS3 LMS TCR.
Souza eventually dropped down the table to the seventh position on FP2 due mainly to the performance of two mainland drivers Huang Ruohan and Hu Heng, both competing in Audis RS3 LMS TCR.
The second practice session also brought up another Hong Kong driver, Jason Mok in a Honda Civic Type R (FK2) who finished the session in fourth position.
Still, until now, Lo has been much faster when compared to the followers with some 4.3 seconds separating the top 5.
The Wynn Macau Guia Race – TCR Asia Challenge goes on track today between 1:20 and 2 p.m. for two consecutive qualifying sessions.