The Asian Le Mans Series 2016/2017 Season Awards ceremony took place yesterday evening at the Sama Sama Hotel in Sepang.
Hosted by DSC’s Editor, the Driver and Team Champions in all classes were awarded together with a trio of Special Awards, ACO President Pierre Fillon, CEO Frederic Lenart, Sporting Director Vioncent Beaumesnil and Board Member Frederic Henri Bibaoud all in Sepang to support Cyrille Taesch Wahlen and his team.
Algarve Pro Racing took the overall title and the LMP2 class with their #25 Ligier Nissan, Andrea Roda took the Drivers title after some reshuffling of the pack mid season.
In the GT class it was class victory for DH Racing, Michele Rugolo taking the Drivers crown, again after drivers squads were shuffled during the season.
LMP3 went to the Tockwith Motorsports pairing of Philip Hanson and Nigel Moore, their family owned team also taking the teams title after an excellent P3 season that saw the Ligiers and Ginettas battling throughout.
The GT Cup title went to the Japanese TKS squad, the effort seeing Shinyo Sano and wheelchair bound Takuma Aoki took the drivers crown too.
The Asian Le Mans Series Man of the Year went to Mok Weng Sun, the 2015/16 GT drivers Champion returning for a second crack at the title this year in his #61 Ferrari 488 GT3 with Matt Griffin and Keith Sawa. The team will be stepping up to a full season in the FIA WEC later this year with a GTE Am class Ferrari 488 GTE.
The award was received on Mok’s behalf by Clearwater Racing Team Principal Arj Kulasegaram.
Rookie of the year went to Tockwith Motorsport’s Philip Hanson, In just one year Hanson has come from a karting background to win the Britcar title last year in the team’s Audi R8 LMS, become a force to be reckoned with in the ELMS and now Asian Le Mans Series Champion.
2017 sees the team, and both current drivers stepping up to LMP2 with a Ligier JS P217 for the full ELMS and now, courtesy of an auto entry for their Championship win in Asia, a guaranteed place on the grid at Le Mans.
Team of the Year meanwhile went to the 2016/17 LMP2 Champions, Algarve Pro Racing, the additional award in recognition of their 2 car LMP2 effort and for the way in which they attacked the task in hand, Stewart and Sam Cox accepted the award with Michael Munemann, long-time backer of the outfit, called to the stage too to take the applause of the rest of the Asian Le Mans Series ‘family’.
2016/17 looks set to be seen as a breakthrough year for the Asian Le Mans Series, a tight knit team producing a very impressive grid, a happy paddock, and with a steady eye to the future.
