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Tasmanian race car driver Josh Burdon wants to be the fastest man in Asia.

The 23-year-old has moved his motorsport career to China for a tilt at the Asian Formula Renault title and the decision is already paying off.

Burdon holds the championship lead, having won three out of the four races so far this season.

"I've been here since the second week of January working every day with the team, and testing and making sure we've got what we think is a good strong base to come straight out and fight with," he said.

After stints in Europe and America, Burdon has moved to Zhuhai, where his BlackArts Racing team is based.

"I've been here for three months now, and it took me the first one to two months to settle in to the lifestyle over here, and maybe you might say the Asian way of doing things, which is quite different coming from Europe and Australia and America," he said.

"Here in Asia you find the economy and motorsport is booming at the moment, there is a lot of money circulating around, and the sport is new to the region so there is a lot of hype around motor racing in Asia."

On the track, Burdon quickly showed he had the pace to be a championship contender.

"The first round was here in China, the first round of any championship is really hard, and it's the most difficult because you don't know what to expect, you don't know the level of competition," he said.

"The week before the first race I lost my great grandmother and my great grandfather, who I was extremely close to, which made it a weird sort of build-up to the race weekend for me.

"We got pole position, we won race one here in China, we had a lot of speed, and in race two it was raining and I was leading and I ran out of the tiny bit of talent I might have, and crashed out so we didn't finish."

I ran out of the tiny bit of talent I might have, and crashed out so we didn't finish.
-Racing car driver Josh Burdon He had to wait two months for the second round in Korea, bouncing back in the best possible way to take pole position.

"We picked up two race wins, so I kind of re-cemented my job here and just showed that we've probably got the package to beat for the rest of the year," he said.

Despite the strong early season results, the Australian knows his challengers are circling.

"I've got mainly two very top end drivers that have a lot of experience internationally - one is Malaysian and one is from Canada - and they've raced in a lot of things so they're probably my big main rivals," he said.

"In three weeks we've got our next race in Thailand and the championship has never raced at this circuit.

"I'll be training in Hong Kong on a simulator to learn the circuit."

A win in the Asian Formula Renault championship would open doors for Burdon, but he is not getting too far ahead of himself just yet.

"Fingers crossed, if we did win it and have a nice solid result, this championship gets worldwide recognition and it should be quite big news," he said.

"I really have the focus of getting into the World Endurance Championship.

"The ultimate is to be racing outright at the Le Mans 24 hour, and that's the big dream of mine.

"We've made a really good start, we know where we are, and it's time just to keep consistent and keep the good results coming because we really want to win this championship."

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-22/tasmanian-driver-josh-burdon-sets-sights-asian-championship/7435312