The 25th Race of Champions begins today with the ROC Asia and the ROC Thailand at Rajamangala National Stadium.
Drivers from Thailand, India, China and Japan pose at yesterday’s press conference ahead of today’s Race of Champions Thailand and ROC Asia.
Sak 'Kiki' Nana, Tin Sritrai, Nattavude Charoensukwattana and Nattapong Hornthongkum will battle it out in the ROC Thailand with the two finalists representing Thailand in the ROC Asia and tomorrow's ROC Nations Cup.
In the ROC Asia, Thailand will compete against India, China and Japan with the winners representing the continent in the ROC Nations Cup.
The three-day competition ends with the individual Race of Champions on Sunday. The event features top stars from several disciplines including Formula One, Le Mans, IndyCar, rally and motorcycle.
Among them are triple F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel, seven-time F1 world champion Michael Schumacher, reigning MotoGP world champion Jorge Lorenzo, five-time MotoGP champion Mick Doohan, 2012 IndyCar champion Ryan Hunter-Reay and eight-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen.
Yamaha’s MotoGP champion Jorge Lorenzo arrives in Bangkok yesterday.
Today, Team India, Team China, Toyota Team Gazoo Japan and Team Thailand will take part in a four-way competition to find Asia's fastest nation to race against some of the world's best drivers in tomorrow's ROC Nations Cup.
F1 driver Narain Karthikeyan and former F1 racer Karun Chandhok will make their ROC debuts for India.
Team China feature F1 test driver Ho-Pin Tung and rally ace Han Han who both have ROC experience as they competed in the 2009 event at Beijing's National Stadium _ or the Bird's Nest.
Toyota Team Gazoo Japan are represented by Kazuya Ohshima and Takuto Iguchi.
"I'm really proud to see the Race Of Champions in Thailand," Sak told a press conference yesterday.
"All four of us in the ROC Thailand are very proud to be representing our country. We don't have much experience in the Race Of Champions way of driving, especially with all the different cars. I don't want to say too much as I'm still a bit nervous. But we'll push hard, do our best and see what happens."
Karun said: "It's amazing to have an exciting motorsport event so close to home. It's going to be a fun weekend. It's fantastic that motorsport is moving towards Asia."
China's Tung said: "I'm very excited to be back at the Race Of Champions. People in China still ask us about our experience at the ROC 2009 in Beijing and I've heard there are Chinese fans travelling across to Thailand.
"Even if we're going to race against the greatest names in the sport, we'll try hard to beat all of them!"
Japan's Ohshima said: "This is the first time that Japan has had a team at the Race Of Champions and we're very happy to be here.
"Team China, Team India and Team Thailand all look very strong, but we will try our hardest and we are confident we can do well. Japan has a lot of good racing drivers so I will try to make no mistakes otherwise I cannot go back to Japan!"
Tickets are available at Thai Ticket Major. For more information, call 02-262-3456 or visit www.thaiticketmajor.com