GT Asia World Challenge: FAW-Audi and Origine-Porsche share victory in season opener at Sepang

Saturday’s race started an hour later than scheduled due to a heavy thunderstorm. In the opening phase, wet tires were the best tire choice on the dirt track. This allowed Ye Bian (Vincenzo Sospiri Racing) to move from P12 to the lead, Satoshi Hoshino (D’station Racing) from P17 to second and Cao Qi (Craft-Bamboo Racing) from P13 to third. However, while the wets drove themselves to pieces on the quick-dry cycle, those on the slicks bounced back. Cheng had started from pole position, dropping to fourth, but Fong ended up in second place after a mandatory driver change. The Craft-Bamboo race held up well and Cao’s teammate Daniel Morad came out ahead of the race with a skier. But Fong was faster than Morad in the final stages and overtook the Canadian in the last fifteen minutes.

Ye Hongli and Yuan Bo were the only drivers to win both races in one of the four classes

Silver Cup duo Cheng and Fong won the first race of the season. Pro Am Cup winners Edo Liberati and Ye Bian finished second and the overall podium was completed by Silver-Am Cup winners Ye Hongli and Yuan Bo (Origine Motorsport). The Porsches of Bastian Buus and Vutthikron Inthraphuvasak (AAS Phantom Global Racing) and Anthony Liu and Alessio Picariello (Absolute Racing) topped the Pro-Am podium and finished in the top five overall. Cao and Morad had to settle for P11 overall and P8 in Pro-Am, after a bit of contact with Fong caused the Mercedes-AMG to pit. Akash Nandy and James Yu (Audi Sport Team Asia Kabisa) finished second in the Silver Cup ahead of the new Ferrari of Ryo Ogawa and Shigekazu Wakisaka (LMcorsa). Christian Colombo and David Tjiptobiantoro (Garage 75) won the Am Cup.

Cheng and Fong won from pole on Saturday, but the Audi duo had to fight hard for the win

RACE RESULTS 1

Heinrich and Lu comfortably cruised to victory on Sunday from pole in their purple 911 GT3 R. Cao and Morad had better luck in Race 2 and finished second. The Pro-Am podium was completed by Prince Abu Bakar Ibrahim and Jordan Love (Triple Eight JMR) after an incident in the last corner of the final lap. Liu spun Wang Zhongwei’s Climax Racing-Mercedes-AMG and both Liu and Picariello received a penalty kick, leaving them out of the top ten. Ralf Aron and Wang finished fourth in the Pro-Am behind Ibrahim and Love. Liang Jiatong and Luo Kailuo (Harmony Racing) made up no less than ten places in their pursuit of Silver Cup victory ahead of Nandy and Yu, and Saturday’s winners Cheng and Fong. Ye and Yuan once again dominated the Silver-Am Cup, with Yuta Kamimura and Hiroaki Nagai (Porsche Center Okazaki) taking second place in the class, after Min Heng and Jaylyn Robotham (Climax Racing) were shown the black flag for failure to collect a vehicle penalty. Hiroshi Hamaguchi and Mineki Okura (The Spirit of FFF Racing) beat Andrew Macpherson and Ben Porter (AMAC Motorsport) in the Am Cup.

Heinrich and Lu left Malaysia as the championship leaders with two points ahead of Cheng and Fong

RACE RESULTS 2

Before the Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS heads to Japan for three race weekends, the journey will first be made to Thailand. The competition will be held on May 11 and 12 at the Chang International Circuit in Buriram.