A 2014 merger of a Hong Kong GT squad and a British touring car team that won WTCC races, took Le Mans-era GTE action and built a long run of Asian GT titles.
Craft-Bamboo Racing was formed in 2014 from a Hong Kong team and a British squad. It won its first WTCC race in 2013 and later raced for Porsche and Mercedes-AMG in Asian GT events.
Craft-Bamboo Racing is an auto racing team formed in 2014 when a Hong Kong team, Craft Racing, combined with the British squad Bamboo Engineering. The combined outfit raced in touring cars, GT machinery and endurance racing across Europe and Asia. Its best-known achievements came in the World Touring Car Championship and the GT Asia and Blancpain series.
How did Craft-Bamboo Racing begin?
Craft-Bamboo was created in 2014 when Craft Racing, a Hong Kong team, joined forces with Bamboo Engineering, based in Britain. Craft Racing had been set up in 2009 by Frank Yu and spent five years as a front-running team in the Asian championships. Bamboo's roots lay in its own 2009 formation at Silverstone.
Bamboo Engineering took shape in July 2009, after team director Richard Coleman left Tempus Sport. Its results included third in the WTCC drivers' standings in 2013, and it also competed in GP3. Richard Coleman left the operation in 2017 and faced a lawsuit in 2020.
A Hong Kong team and a Silverstone squad merged into a touring-car race winner that later became a Porsche and Mercedes-AMG GT operation.
What did the 2009 touring car programmes look like?
In the 2009 British Touring Car Championship, Bamboo ran Harry Vaulkhard, who scored several top-ten finishes and finished 16th overall. That year the team also entered two Chevrolet Lacettis in the one-off European Touring Car Cup, ahead of a planned 2010 programme in Braga, Portugal.
In qualifying the duo took the second row, with Duarte Felix da Costa third and Vaulkhard fourth. In race one they finished eighth and fifth. In race two Vaulkhard led in a position that would have won the title, but he spun out of contention and crossed the line sixth, while da Costa inherited the lead before spinning as well.
How did the WTCC Lacetti years go?
The squad's 2010 World Touring Car Championship entry started with Vaulkhard and Darryl O'Young. Vaulkhard won the team's first WTCC Independents race at the Race of Italy, and O'Young followed by becoming the first Chinese driver to win an FIA event, at the Race of Portugal.
At Brno O'Young then won rounds 13 and 14, and the team earned its first pole position. Funding problems cut short Vaulkhard's season, and Yukinori Taniguchi took over for the latter part of the year. Taniguchi claimed a class victory in his home race in Japan, and O'Young added another win in the second race there. O'Young later received a 30-second penalty in race one, which demoted him and stripped him of his win. Their first campaign ended in second place in the Yokohama Teams' Trophy table.
For 2011 the team switched from the Lacetti to the Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T from the Race of Belgium. O'Young took the Yokohama Drivers' Trophy in race two, the only independent victory the team achieved that year. The team finished fifth in the Yokohama Teams' Trophy standings, which was a step back from its debut season.
| Season | Series | Highlight |
|---|---|---|
| 2009 | British Touring Car Championship | Harry Vaulkhard, 16th overall |
| 2010 | WTCC | First pole and Independents wins at Italy, Portugal and Brno |
| 2011 | WTCC | Switch to the Cruze; fifth in the Yokohama Teams' Trophy |
| 2013 | WTCC | First overall win at Austria; third in the drivers standings |
| 2014 | WEC | GTE Pro entry with Aston Martin, fourth at Sao Paulo |
| 2015 | TCR International | Seat Leon TC3 with Lukoil |
| 2017 | Blancpain GT Series Asia | GT4 class championship |
| 2019 | GT World Challenge Asia | Mercedes-AMG GT3 programme |
Why did the 2012 season matter?
The 2012 season brought a deal with RML Group, which let the team field the same car as the Chevrolet works squad. It signed Alex MacDowall and Pasquale di Sabatino for an all-rookie line-up. MacDowall took the team's first WTCC independent victory in race one at the Race of Austria.
Di Sabatino was unable to race at Brazil, and Michel Nykjaer substituted for him. Nykjaer started from the independents' pole and won that category in race one by finishing fifth. Robb Holland drove the other car at the American round, and O'Young came back for the Race of Japan. A first-lap pile-up at China ended both Bamboo cars in race one.
The finale at Macau went to Bamboo's cause. O'Young took the independents' pole and then won that category in race one, as the last car to get clear of a crash at the Lisboa corner. MacDowall retired after a tap from behind sent him into the barriers, so O'Young took his second independents' win of the weekend.
How did Bamboo win its first overall WTCC race?
Bamboo kept its WTCC programme in 2013, with James Nash joining from Team Aon and MacDowall staying in the second car. MacDowall claimed his first overall podium at the Race of Italy, with Nash leading the independent drivers' trophy and the team second in the teams' standings behind RML.
Nash had already taken his first podium, third in race one at Morocco. The breakthrough came at the Race of Austria, where Nash started from pole and kept Yvan Muller at bay over the closing laps of race two. That was Bamboo's first overall WTCC win. Nash then won race two in Portugal from pole, five seconds clear of Rob Huff, the reigning world champion. MacDowall and Nash traded independent wins for the rest of the year, and between them they took 12 independent race victories. Nash sealed third in the world championship with a fourth in Macau, while Tom Chilton crashed out of both races.
What happened in GP3 and the endurance races?
In 2013 Bamboo also took over the GP3 slot previously held by Atech CRS Grand Prix. Roberto La Rocca was its first driver, but after the death of Hugo Chavez and the political upheaval that followed, La Rocca was forced out and Carmen Jorda took his place.
Melville McKee and Lewis Williamson drove the other cars. McKee won race two at the Nurburgring for the team's first victory, and at season's end the team was sold to Russian Time.
For 2014 Craft-Bamboo formed a technical partnership with Prodrive, which ran the Aston Martin Racing programme, and fielded an Aston Martin Vantage V8 in the FIA World Endurance Championship GTE Pro class. Alex MacDowall, Darryl O'Young and Fernando Rees shared the car. A crash in the first night session at Le Mans left the car beyond repair, so the team did not start the flagship race.
The first big result arrived at the 6 Hours of Fuji, where MacDowall and Rees took pole. The car lost the race by 30 seconds to the two Ferraris, a gap about equal to the time lost refuelling. The team finished the season with a strong fourth place at the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo.
How did the TCR and Asian Le Mans programmes go?
The Asian Le Mans effort in 2014 ran a single Ligier Morgan-Judd in the CN class, after an earlier plan for two CN cars and an LMP2 entry was scaled back. The squad was on class pole, won and set the fastest lap in each of the four rounds, and was crowned champion. Kevin Tse won the drivers' title.
In 2015 Craft-Bamboo entered the new TCR International Series with Seat Leon TC3 cars in partnership with Lukoil. Pepe Oriola, Jordi Gene and Sergey Afanasyev were the lead drivers, with Frank Yu in a fourth car at selected events. Oriola and Afanasyev finished second and third in the opening race, and Gene took a lights-to-flag win in race two. The team enjoyed a one-two-three in Spain and a one-two finish at Sochi, and Gene's third victory came at Singapore.
Why did the GT Asia programme matter?
In 2014 the team took over the entry of two Aston Martin Vantage GT3 cars in GT Asia, a respected continental series in which it received technical backing from Aston Martin Racing. Frank Yu drove the number 97 car all season, partnered by Warren Luff, Stefan Mucke and Richard Lyons, while the number 99 car was shared by several drivers.
The team's only win came at its home race in Malaysia with Mucke, and it finished second in the teams championship. For 2015 the team kept both Vantages with full-time drivers. Jonathan Venter, backed by Aston Martin, drove alongside Darryl O'Young in the number 99 car, and Lyons paired with Yu in the other. During the summer Venter broke a leg in a cycling fall at his Australian home, and Daniel Lloyd took over his seat. Lloyd and O'Young won the Shanghai double that put the number 99 car in the lead, and O'Young clinched the drivers' title with a victory in the final round.
How did the Porsche and Mercedes-AMG partnerships change the team?
In early 2016 Craft-Bamboo announced it would partner with Porsche Motorsport, becoming the official technical partner for the brand across Asia-Pacific. The partnership gave the team a platform for sports car programmes, including a title defence in the 2016 GT Asia Series with the all-new Porsche 911 GT3 R.
The Blancpain GT Series Asia debut in 2017 saw two Porsche 911 GT3 Rs and one Cayman GT4 Clubsport MR. Frank Yu and Jean Marc-Merlin drove the GT4, while Darryl O'Young and Peter Li Zhi Cong shared a VLT-sponsored 911 GT3 R. The GT4 class title went to the squad, which also took fourth in the GT3 standings in its first season. The 2018 season brought two GT3 Rs and a Cayman GT4 again.
At the end of 2018 Craft-Bamboo switched to Mercedes-AMG as part of a long-term partnership that also covered selected Intercontinental GT Challenge rounds and the Macau GT World Cup. The team confirmed at least two Mercedes-AMG GT3 cars and a Mercedes-AMG GT4 for GT World Challenge Asia, and in 2019 it finished fifth in the GT3 team championship.
What did the FIA GT World Cup show?
In 2015 the team entered the inaugural FIA GT World Cup in Macau with three Aston Martin Vantage GT3 cars. Stefan Mucke led the qualifying session and finished third in the main race after a long battle with Audi drivers. Darryl O'Young was fifth, while Richard Lyons crashed out on the opening lap.
The World Cup was not always kind. In 2016 O'Young started from the back after missing qualifying, then was struck by Edoardo Mortara in the qualifying race, which ended his weekend and cost the team its starting position. In 2017 a multi-car pile-up red-flagged the race, and O'Young later retired after contact from the Audi of Nico Muller. In 2019 Mortara finished sixth after moving from 14th on the grid, and the team also ran Alessio Picariello in a second car.
