Thai team finishes 6th in 24-hour race
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A five-driver squad, led by well-known expat driver Thomas Raldorf, became the first Thai team to participate in the Dubai 24-Hour Race staged earlier this month.
The team finished in 6th position in its class, and 46th overall in a field of 75 cars.
Apart from Raldorf, who is from Denmark, other drivers were Ekarat Wihawatprapa (Thailand), Pitsanu Sirimongkolkasem (Thailand), Jakob Borum (Denmark) and Niels Borum (Denmark). Raldorf said preparations started back in August 2011, with the aim to bring a full Thailand-based team of drivers and mechanics for the event.
“But due to flooding in Thailand and the Thai race calendar being shuffled around we ended up having three drivers from Thailand and two from Denmark,” he said.
Raldorf said he felt he was well prepared when the car was shipped to the UAE at the start of December, but he later came to learn that a 24-Hour race is like nothing else, and the preparations are very comprehensive.
The Team had been into and out
of the pits a total of 30 times,
more than any other team in the race, and this was also noticed by the commentators of the event, but the fact that they had many stops but spent less time in the pits than many other teams, was also mentioned, and the mechanics got praise for keeping the car going for all the 24 hours.
“The motorsports media was very interested in the little team from Thailand and the fact they had travelled all the way to Dubai to compete with big-name teams like Besaplast and SIG from Germany, and was also very interested in knowing more about motorsport in Thailand in general as most of them had no idea how big motorsport in Thailand is,” he said.
