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December 14, 2025

Coelho retains Asia Touring Car title with dominant finals display

Infinity’s Bruno Coelho has retained his Asia Touring Car Championship title with a dominant display in the finals in Foshan, China. With this year’s FEMCA organised race attracting a stacked field due to the Hongyu GDC track hosting the World Championships next April, while qualifying produced TQ runs from three different drivers, in the finals the reigning World Champion was untouchable. His closest challenge would come from Awesomatix’s Lucas Urbain and while the French driver was closer in A2 he never really put Coelho’s title under threat. Winning A2 to secure the overall victory but feeling his set-up change for A2 wasn’t the right one, Coelho would run A3 going on to win that with the first & only 20-lap run of the weekend. While Urbain would crash out in A3, Naoto Matsukura fending off Michal Orlowski for P2, he would hold on for second overall while Orlowski completed the podium. Ryosuke Yamamoto and Pekko Iivonen completed the Top 5 overall ahead of Matsukura and Akio Sobue. In 13.5 Stock, it was also the Top Qualifier Shin Sawada who took the title. After a bad start to the finals spinning on lap 1, the Xray driver won A2 & 3 from team-mate Adam Izsay. Unfortunately the delayed time schedule meant ARC’s A1 winner Enrico Jung had to leave for his flight back to Germany so it was Jan Ratheisky who completed the all Xray podium.

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December 14, 2025

Coelho cruises to A1 win at Asia Touring Car Championship

Bruno Coelho cruised to victory in the opening A-Main of the Asia Touring Car Championship, the Infinity driver ending up with a one & a half second advantage over Lucas Urbain who came under pressure from a hard charging Michal Orlowski. As the Top Qualifier, Coelho would break clear of the field over the opening lap of the large Hongyu GDC track, helped by Urbain having to battle his own Awesomatix as it got out of shape. Starting from 3rd, Naoto Matsukura also had to fight with his car first allowing 6th place starter Orlowski through for 3rd before a second off, in which he got stuck in the track’s infield, dropped the Japanese driver to last. Schumacher’s Pekko Iivonen was the benefactor finishing P4 ahead of Infinity’s Ryosuke Yamamoto. In the opening 13.5T Stock A-Main, it was the prototype ARC of Enrico Jung who took the win ending Xray’s qualification domination. Having secured the TQ, Shin Sawada would, after a jump start, spin out on the opening lap allowing Xray team-mate Jan Ratheisky go to the front. Passed by Jung, he soon found himself back in front as Jung got crossed up but it wasn’t for long as the 3rd place qualifier again got to the front where he would stay to the end to win comfortably by 2.8 seconds from Ratheisky and Martus Benetin.

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December 14, 2025

Coelho ‘Top Qualifier’ in China with Q3 TQ run

Infinity’s Bruno Coelho is the Top Qualifier at the Asia Touring Car Championship in China, the race’s defending Champion securing pole position when he topped the third & final qualifier. The Top Seed going into qualifying on Friday, Coelho would become the third different driver to top the timings at the Hongyu GDC track taking the final round ahead of Q2 winner Lucas Urbain but with his TQ run time faster on the improving track conditions it was the Portuguese driver who is the Top Qualifier. Setting the fastest time of all qualifying on Friday night, before the rain washed out Saturday’s action, Naoto Matsukura would get a 3 for the final round to secure third on the grid ahead of Axon’s Akio Sobue and Infinity’s Ryosuke Yamamoto. Michal Orlowski completes the Top 6 grid line-up after the Schumacher driver needed marshalling in the final qualifier. In Stock, it was Xray domination of proceedings with their drivers topping all three rounds. Q1 would go to Shin Sawada, Q2 Adam Izsay, and Q3 Jan Ratheisky but overall it is Sawada who takes the overall TQ ahead of Ratheisky, with the ARC prototype of Enrico Jung completing the Top 3 ahead of Izsay.

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December 14, 2025

Urbain takes Q2 from Coelho at Asia Touring Car Championship

Lucas Urbain has TQ’d the second round of qualifying at the Asia Touring Car Championship, the Awesomatix driver making the most of the challenging track conditions to top the times ahead of Top Seed Bruno Coelho and Akio Sobue. With rain preventing any action at Hongyu GDC track yesterday, while a dry start to Sunday conditions would be much cooler and windier than Friday when it was Infinity’s Naoto Matsukura who took the opening TQ. With Matsukura posting a time of 19/5:07.597 in Q1, even with a round of free practice run to open the day and get some rubber back down on the track, Urbain’s TQ time this morning was almost half a lap slower with the French driver running 19/5:14.210 with Coelho just 0.145 behind. The top heat would see mistakes from a number of drivers including Matsukura who ended up P7. Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski also had a spin, after which he said his car was OK as he held station on track with Urbain, but the almost 21-second lap 3 meant his time was only good enough for P6. Another strong run from Infinity’s Ryosuke Yamamoto saw him back up his Top 3 in Q1 with a fourth ahead of Axon’s Hayato Ishioka.

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December 14, 2025

New cars & parts at the Asia Touring Car Championship

With the Asia Touring Car Championship unofficially the warm-up race for next April’s IFMAR ISTC World Championships in China, a lot of manufacturers are using this weekend’s race to test new parts and in some cases completely new cars. As previously mentioned in our opening report from the Hongyy GDC track on Friday, Schumacher has a brand new platform with three examples running in the hands of Michal Orlowski, Mattia Collina, and Pekko Iivonen, all of the team well briefed to give away nothing about the British manufacturers latest project. We also already know that Tamiya has new parts it is testing with the iconic Japanese manufacturer and it TRF designer Kiyo Suzuki not wanting to officially disclose any more details on what they are testing. HPI, who excited the touring car world when they showed off a competition spec car they are working on back in October, are here with the car which now features a new chassis design. While our usual Chassis Focus feature will be thin on the ground from this race, two manufacturers that have cars they can show us are Awesomatix and Xray. Awesomatix said they take a slightly different approach to other manufacturers with their new car releases and they are running a standard latest spec A800RR as their development is always ongoing but Max Machler did say they might have one or two new parts come the World Championship.

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December 13, 2025

Rain cancels Saturday action at Asia Touring Car Championship

While it was widely expected, unfortunately rain has forced FEMCA to cancel Saturday’s action at the Asia Touring Car Championship at the new Hongyu GDC facility in Foshan, China. Having altered yesterday’s scheduled to try and get 2 rounds of qualifying completed, unfortunately a light rain shower at the end of seeding delayed the program and it was only possible to get 1 round of qualifying done under the lights. With four rounds of qualifying having been scheduled for today, the organisers are now working on a revised timetable for tomorrow. With Sunday’s weather looking good, the plan is to get 2 more rounds of qualifying in before moving to finals. In Q1, it was the Infinity of Naoto Matsukura who was fastest from Axon’s Akio Sobue while in Stock Xray’s Shin Sawada, a podium finisher in Modified at these Championships last year when it was held indoors, TQ’d the round from team-mates Jan Ratheisky and Adam Izsay. With the pits at the very impressive multi track Hongyu GDC buzzing with 181 racers making this the biggest & most international FEMCA Touring Car race yet, it is great to see FEMCA’s newly introduced Junior Class with controlled chassis & electric excelling with 31 budding future World Champions taking part.

December 12, 2025

Matsukura takes opening qualifier under lights in China

Infinity’s Naoto Matsukura has taken the opening round of qualifying under the lights at the Asia Touring Car Championship in China, the number 2 seed topping the delayed and eventful Q1 ahead of Axon’s Akio Sobue. With rain after seeding delaying the schedule at Hongyu GDC and a full round of practice run to get the track back up to speed, when the final run of the evening came around Top Seed Bruno Coelho would struggle. The rear of his Infinity clearly not at one with the track. Losing the car a number of times, Matsukura lucky to not collect his team-mate, the World Champion would end up P9 at the conclusion of the round. With Matsukura taking the TQ by 1.2-seconds from Sobue, only Jin Sawada managed a faster lap time but pushing the limits of his electrics the Japanese Xray driver would run out of battery with a lap to go costing him a certain Top 2 run as he got a DNF. Behind the Top 2, Infinity’s Ryosuke Yamamoto made it a Japanese trio at the top of the times ahead of the all new Schumachers of Michal Orlowski and Pekko Iivonen with Awesomatix’s Lucas Urbain completing the Top 6 for what could prove a critical run. Having originally planned two qualifiers today because of the threat of rain, but only get one, the chances of a wet day tomorrow seem even higher as drivers left the track for the evening.

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December 12, 2025

Coelho top seed at stacked Asia Championship

Infinity’s Bruno Coelho is the Top Seed at a stacked Asia Touring Car Championship at the impressive new Hongyu GDC track in Foshan, China. The defending champion of the race formerly known as the FEMCA Championship, the World Champion set the pace over the 4-rounds of seeding from team-mate & former World Champion Naoto Matsukura with the Xray of Jin Sawada completing the Top 3. With the venue set to host the ISTC World Championships next April, this weekend’s racing while not an official Warm Up race has attracted all the major drivers and manufacturers with the exception of Mugen Seiki although winner of the last World Championship to be hosted in China in 2016, Ronald Volker will arrive over the weekend for testing with many of the racers staying for up to a week of further testing after the race. In terms of cars, manufacturers are here with plenty of new updates/prototype parts and even completely new cars. While Awesomatix is here with its standard car, Lucas Urbain 6th for them in seeding, at the other end of the scale Schumacher have a completely brand new car with Michal Orlowski ending up 7th in second. Once the dominant force at ISTC Worlds, winning titles with Marc Rheinard who is not racing but is due to arrive for testing, and Jilles Groskamp, the Dutch legend racing in China for the first time in 10-year, iconic brand Tamiya are here with a number of updates to their car which is being driven by Souta Goto. Unfortunately with a treat of rain for Saturday and light rain arriving at the end of seeding, it looks like the event may see some rescheduling. The first two rounds of qualifying having already been brought forward to Friday afternoon.

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