Goodyear International Drift Round 1 – Top 16 Tandem Battle
As promised, here is the full photo report of the top 16 drivers battling it out at the newly resurfaced sweltering heat Putrajaya track. Although there are some unexpected surprises in qualifying, most big teams made it to the top 16. We will look back more on that later, now is the time for a close look at the battles.
The top 16 drivers are presented to the audience. This is a customary tradition in most of the drift events these days. The likes of Djan, Hanizam, Fanga Dan, Tan Tat Wei, Ah Fai, Hashiguti Anderson and Ivan Lau are all there in the top 16 to ensure tough battles ahead for the rest of the drivers.
Djan acknowledges the crowd before preparing his new 180sx drift machine. He is just fresh from winning Round 1 of FXOpen Series, but that was with a different car. Now on to the battles,
First up, Fanga Dan vs Bullzai. In both of the runs, both were quite close to each other. However as the judges announced, the lines taken must follow what was mentioned in the drivers briefing. While Fanga Dan did just that, Bullzai might have compromised the line a tad too much.
Hence Fanga Dan proceeds to the next round.
Along Rempit vs Hashiguti Andersen. This is definitely one of the toughest battles in the top 16.
But in the end Hashiguti Anderson had enough approval from the judges to progress into top 8.
After a storming first run from Prince of Drift in his new machine leaving Rhenardi Arinton in the dust, no one expected the biggest upset is about to take place few minutes later.
The second run saw Rhenardi leading Djan into the first clipping point. After a solid entry, Djan was closing up on Rhenardi all the time, then few seconds later, he lost it trying to avoid a collision from the stalling car of Rhenardi. After the incident, Djan was unable to continue the run due to some sort of mechanical failure. Lucky for Rhenardi, even though his car seems stalling, he manages to maintain the drift until the finish line. The advantage Djan had on his first run wasn’t enough to beat Rhenardi. Djan fans appear disappointed as their heroes had fallen early. For the Prince of Drift, the newly built 180sx had failed to deliver on the first attempt.
Ah Fai vs Michael Gan. Ah Fai pulls the first run well ahead of Michael Gan.
Ah Fai’s battle against Michael Gan in his Skyfiro turned out to be an easy one as Michael understeered and lost speed plus angle. The result is no surprise as Ah Fai was an unstoppable force all weekend long and destined to go far in this championship.
Mervyn Nakamura vs Ivan Lim. After a tight first run, Ivan Lim spun on his second run allowing Mervyn to take the easy victory.
Tan Tat Wei vs Ah Liang. Tan Tat Wei is again on top of his game. He is definitely a man with a mission here after recently losing to Djan in the final of Round 1 FXOpen Series.
Ivan Lau and Danny Loong. For Ivan, consistency was the name of his game as he comfortably left Danny in the smokes.
Hanizam vs Ng Choon Lai. The battle of smokers.
In the end Ng Choon Lain triumphed over Hanizam after this blinding fast smoking run. Hanizam did great but a big correction cost him the tie.
Here is one of Bad Smokers of the tournament Hanizam in action, it’s a pity to see him lose early after strong runs all weekend.
Stay tuned for more battles from the recent Goodyear International Drift!
Editorial : Mu’az Zakaria
