Young sets sights on podium finish in China

Young in action

By Malik Gunatilleke in Longyou, China

Sri Lanka’s first-ever international motor racing team EZY Racing will enter the Chinese leg of the Asia Pacific Rally Championship 2015 with hopes of building on last year’s second place finish.

EZY Racing, which partnered with Japan-based Cusco and signed up three-time Junior Asia Pacific Rally Champion Mike Young, has emerged as a strong contender for the Asia Cup of the Asia Pacific Rally Championship with a stream of positive results this season.

Speaking to the Daily FT before the crunch rally in China, Young stated that his main focus would be on completing the race and gaining as many points as possible for the team. However, much will be expected of the young Kiwi driver owing to his excellent performances in the Asia Cup so far, having won podium finishes in all but one rally.

“Nothing much has changed on the track since last year. At the moment it’s dry and a little bit rough in some places with quite a bit of gravel so it might be slippery but the tarmac seemed pretty good; I don’t think the forecast is that bad either but hopefully it won’t rain,” he said.

Young’s main concern with the course will be the two gravel stages which can punish the slightest error. Stressing the need to be neat and tidy along the gravel stages of the track, Young stated that the team were considering a strategy to gain a head of steam on the concrete stages of the rally.

“There aren’t any changes to the car since the Japan race but the tyres are sometimes different. We have a semi-rally/tarmac tyre we can use especially because a lot of the stages are concrete. So we need to take a decision on that,” he said.

Japanese automotive parts manufacturer Cusco is expected to bring in further upgrades for Young’s Cusco EZY Racing Subaru.

Young currently stands second in the Asia Cup classification, behind Japanese driver Hitoshi Takayama. He is also currently leading the production cup ahead of Indonesian driver and former production world Rally Driver Subhan Aksa and will be certain to bring the Sri Lankan-based team its first accolade.

With the production cup all but a formality now, Young will shift his focus on a podium finish ahead of the final race in India and competing against the might of the MRF team’s Skodas.

“We see the MRF team introducing the Skoda R5 in China this weekend. This will make catching up with them an impossible task. Our aim as usual is to be the best of the rest and be as close to the Skoda team as possible,” he added.

Meanwhile, EZY Racing’s Founder Shafraz Hamzadeen stated that Mike’s skills along with Cusco’s engineering capabilities have transformed his team to become frontrunners in the international racing arena in just its second year.

“I have always believed in doing the basics very well. That’s precisely what we have done in international motor racing. In our first year we realised the gap that we had and that the only way we could address this was by forming partnerships with the right stakeholders. That’s where Cusco and Mike came in,” said Hamzadeen.

Commenting on his team’s success this season, Hamzadeen commended the efforts of Cusco which has put its heart and soul into providing his team with a perfect car.

“What’s going for us this season is the reliability that Cusco has put into our car. This reliability has ensured that we have had zero mechanical issues and a 100% podium finish every time we completed a rally. A phenomenal success rate for a team that runs on a fraction of the budget of any frontrunner,” he added.

As the race draws near, the EZY and Cusco team including Mike and his co-driver Malcolm Read will be raring to go out and take another step toward improving their wildly successful season.

EZY Racing’s Rally China updates will be posted live on its fan page www.fb.com/ezyracing.