The third round of Jaguar I-PACE eTROPHY was run in Hong Kong on slippery asphalt.
The qualifying was run in the rain, where Caca Bueno took Pole Position ahead of Bryan Sellers, Simon Evans and Stefan Rzadzinski. Championship leader Katherine Legge would start from P5, in front of Yaqi Zhang and the guest driver of the weekend, Darryl O’Young.
There was some close contact in the first corner, where Bueno and Sellers pulled away, while Legge braked herself past on the inside and came up to P3.
Sergio Jimenez started the race from P12, but he was up to eighth after a few corners.
There was Full Course Yellow after the first lap, since there were debris all over the track. There were seven cars where the front and rear had some contacts. But the race quickly got resumed.
Yaqi Zhang did an overtaking on Celia Martin, that was a bit on the harsh side. Rzadzinski had problems with the car and fell back down the field.
Celia Martin did a spin on the way out of the last corner, when she pushed a bit too hard on the slippery track.
Caca Bueno did a mistake in Turn 1 and fell all the way back to P6, and thus the RLL drivers Sellers and Legge were en 1-2, just like in Mexico.
Sellers had a nice gap halfway through the race, while Legge had two drivers behind her.
Ahmed Bin-Khanen ran wide in Turn 1, where he damaged the car too much that he had to retire. Luckily he could drive it back to the pits, and there was no need for another FCY.
Legge could breathe a bit easier when Evans got busy with O’Young og Jimenez.
The race director chose to deploy another Full Course Yellow with five minutes left, when Qi Lin went still on the track and the marshals had to push the car.
Sergio Jimenez used it to his advantage when Darryl O’Young fell a bit asleep as the race got restarted. Jimenez did a very late dive and went past O’Young with a light brush on the door, later followed by Caca Bueno.
Jimenez had a bit problems with stopping the car in Turn 1, which his teammate tried to exploit by diving up on the inside. There was a bit of contact between the two cars, but both could come out of the corner without any trouble – with Jimenez remained in front of Bueno.
After 25 minutes and one lap, Bryan Sellers won the race ahead of his teammate Katherine Legge. There was a little drama with the third place, when Sergio Jimenez pushed himself on Simon Evans’ side and sent Evans hard towards the wall, just a few metres in front of the finish line. So Jimenez finished P3 and Evans slid through the finish line in P4. with three wheels on the car – a few centimetres away from Caca Bueno in P5
Yaqi Zhang won the Pro-Am category ahead of Bandar Alesayi and Celia Martin.
Bryan Sellers is now leading the Pro championship, in front of Katherine Legge and Sergio Jimenez.
Bandar Alesayi leads the Pro-Am championship, followed by his teammate Ahmed Bin-Khanen, and Yaqi Zhang in third place.
The next round of Jaguar I-PACE eTROPHY will be run in two weeks’ time in Sanya, China.