EZY Racing win their second consecutive podium for APRC 2016

Sunshine Coast, Queensland: Sri Lankan based EZY Racing’s Mike Young produced yet another scintillating display of driving to fight off an early challenge from local favourite Nathan Quinn to win EZY Racing their second podium finish in as many races, in the 2016 FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC), concluded here in the Sunshine Coast of Australia.

With the rains beating in over the weekend, the International Rally of Queensland, Australia, came to a close sooner than expected. The weather however did not dampen the hopes for the EZY Racing duo, Mike and Malcom, who managed to secure 3rd overall at the International Rally of Queensland, the second round of the FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship 2016. 

The Queensland leg, consisting of two days of racing across special stages in the Sunshine Coast, began with roads significantly varying between dry on Saturday and slippery on Sunday in which the team was forced to carefully manage their strategies throughout the weekend. The team started the first stage on Saturday on soft compound tyres expecting the terrain to be wet as it was on the race day. Young soon realised that the conditions were much dryer and struggled to set competitive timings in the first four stages of the day as the soft tyres hindered the pace. 

Coming into midday break, Young was positioned 4th behind the MRF Skoda team mates and Quinn. With Young opting to change the tyres into a harder compound tyre for the four stages post mid-day session, the 23-year-old battled to gain 3rd place from Quinn and challenged Fabian Kreim from the MRF Skoda team for second place in stage 8. With conditions drying out towards the latter half of the day, the EZY Racer demonstrated similar pace as shown during the first leg of APRC 2016 in New Zealand.

Young said “It was a much better afternoon for us. Changing the tyres on the Cusco EZY Racing Subaru worked well and gave me so much confidence. We were basically going 40 seconds quicker during the afternoon stages than in the morning. It was a good afternoon with no mistakes.”

Sunday however brought the team a different set of challenges with the weather taking a complete turn from the dry conditions on Saturday. Rally organisers were forced to cancel four stages on Sunday afternoon due to the inclement weather, much to the relief of many competitors including Young. 

Other than the stage cancellations, Young and Read had no other major issues and the Cusco EZY Racing Subaru was faultless all weekend, which again contributed to their success.

“The Cusco EZY Racing Subaru was a winner this weekend. It was set up really well and I was happy with how it gave me confidence even during wet conditions. It’s obviously hard going against Skoda R5 cars but I think we showed we’ve got speed.” Young said. 

The young Kiwi duo also wanted to commend the efforts of Cusco and EZY Racing for their unwavering support in their quest for an international championship. “We really have to thank all the guys from Cusco and EZY Racing. Cusco gave me a perfect car, and the team from EZY Racing came all the way down here to support us and watch the rally. We wouldn’t be able to do this without them,” said Young. 

Young admitted that his co-driver, Malcolm Read had an equally tough job because of the constant change of pace, and amendments to the pace-notes, schedule and rally route.

The elated CEO and Founder of EZY Racing, Shafraz Hamzadeen expressed “It’s another good day in office for us. Although we were hoping for dry weather which would have suited Mike’s driving the best as he demonstrated in New Zealand, it turned out to be a mixed weather weekend. We tried to improvise with tyre strategies, that didn’t go our way this weekend. In reality everyone knows that this is the best result we can expect. Mike is just pushing the car beyond its possibilities to give the Skoda R5’s a challenge and to see if we could force an error. Unfortunately we lost about a minute to Gaurav on the first four stages of the day. We are now looking at Japan where we kick off our Asia Cup Challenge where Cusco plans to do some upgrades.” 

EZY Racing will be kicking off the Asia Cup challenge in Obihiro, Japan this September. The team had a great finish to last years’ Japan leg where they were driven to their very first international win with Young. Young drove brilliantly to finish 2nd in Rally Japan and 1st in the Asia Cup, in which he classified as “the toughest rally to-date”, and saw extremely difficult conditions, with heavy rains. 

The team looks forward in anticipation for an exciting challenge like last year in Northern Japan.