Plenty of Racing in the Asia-Pacific

While many motorsport series have already gone into hibernation in North America and Europe, the V8 Supercars and Asian Le Mans Series are wrapping up their seasons as they enjoy much warmer conditions.

In Malaysia, the 2013 Asian Le Mans Series season wraps up at Sepang with a 14 car grid. The #18 KCMG Morgan-Nissan driven by former Indy Lights driver James Winslow and two-time Super Formula (formerly Formula Nippon) champion Tsugio Matsuda is on pole after beating the #24 OAK Racing Morgan-Judd of Chinese driver Ho-Pin Tung and Chinese-American David Cheng by a little more than a quarter of a second. The #27 Oreca-Nissan of Jun Jin Pu, Dan Polley and Richard Bradley will start third.

The Ferrari 458 GTE entry of Clearwater Racing and driven by Weng Sun Mok and Tonu Vilander lead all GT cars starting fourth followed by the Craft Racing Aston Martins of Frank Yu, Darryl O'Young and Tomonobu Fujii and Stefan Mücke and Keita Sawa.

The final round of the 2013 Asian Le Mans Series season will begin Sunday morning at 2:00 a.m. ET.

In Australia, Jamie Whincup is one step closer to winning his third consecutive V8 Supercars title and fifth in six seasons. Whincup picked up his eleventh win of the season on the streets of Sydney and benefitted from an unfortunate turn of events for his championship rivals Craig Lowndes and Mark Winterbottom. Entering only twenty points ahead of his teammate Lowndes, Whincup's victory in race one extends the margin to one hundred and ten points with one hundred and fifty still on the line in race two.

Winterbottom got into the back of Lowndes, knocking his Holden into the tires but Winterbottom would be hit from behind by fellow Ford driver and Surfers Paradise winner David Reynolds. All three would continue. The damage to Lowndes' Holden would prove costly as his crew would have problems fueling the car and would be forced to make an extra pit stop. Lowndes would finish fifteenth. Winterbottom day only got worse. Slight contract with Jason Bright would send Winterbottom into the wall, ending his race and his championship hopes.

Whincup would lead an all-Holden top four ahead of Jonathan Webb, Shane van Gisbergen and Bright. Will Davison was the top Ford in fifth and would jump his teammate Winterbottom in the standings. Tony D'Alberto finished sixth ahead of the Nissan of Michael Caruso who gained seventeen positions from his starting spot on the grid. The Mercedes-Benz of Tim Slade finished eighth with the Nissans of Rick and Todd Kelley rounding out the top ten.

The championship is a two horse race between the Red Bull Racing Holdens of Whincup and Lowndes. A win for Lowndes means he would need Whincup to finish twenty-second or worse. Should Whincup retire from race two, Lowndes would need to finish at least fifth.

The final race of the 2013 V8 Supercars Season will start tonight at 11:05 p.m. ET.