BBT prevails in dramatic Race 2 at Sepang


The Sunday at Sepang had all sorts of action in the second Blancpain GT Series Asia race, with BBT and Ferrari being triumphant at the end of the single hour of racing.

The all-Audi front row was soon undone by Rui Aguas in the No. 38 Spirit of Race Ferrari who jumped to second place and then got the lead from the No. 6 Audi R8 LMS Cup car, streching the distance little by little.

While the top spots were quite stable, fights were still happening in the midfield, like the GruppeM Mercedes battle for sixth place, with No. 888 passing the No. 999 car and then getting countered, losing its place. Rui Aguas was in a nice pace in front but then got too wide and gave the opportunity for Alex Yoong to attack with the No. 6 Audi, and Aguas' bad luck got worse as GT4 traffic got the two closer and Yoong took the lead with a late brake maneuver with 20 minutes of racing.

During the pit window period the leading group decided to stop as late as possible with a few exeptions, and the No. 37 BBT Ferrari was the luckiest of these exceptions, jumping to first place as the No. 7 WRT Audi and the No. 13 Milestone Racing Audi left the pitlane, and Anthony Liu was equally quick to build a bucketload of advantage to the Audi group.

The Audi show on 40 minutes saw Sung Jinzu in the No. 13 Milestone Racing Audi suffer a series of overtakes as the once third placed car was passed by the No. 6 and No. 5 Audi Hong Kong cars and by the No. 86 OD Racing car, and after all of that the No. 888 GruppeM Mercedes also passed Jinzu. Alex Au in the No. 6 car saw the No. 5 go past him easily, losing the second place, and Mitch Gilbert in the No. 86 hassled Au until his car got all shaky and Au lost third place.

The second place soon became a battle of Lees with 12 minutes to go, as Marchy in the No. 5 Audi Hong Kong R8 overtook Jeffrey in the No. 7 WRT Audi, who also let the door open for the No. 86 OD Racing Audi to breeze past after a mistake for third position. A sudden lack of pace in the final moment saw the No. 7 go down to eighth place.

Mitch Gilbert was on a hard charge and this was what put him into second once his pressure into Marchy Lee got effect, but with a gap of almost 30 seconds to Anthony Liu, Gilbert couldn't do much anything than settle for second place. The GT4 class was won by the No. 10 EKS Motorsport Porsche of Byron Tong and Eric Lou, as an early overtake into class favorites of the No. 77 CRAFT-Bamboo Porsche let the blue and grey car on clean sail to the checkered flag.



The OD Racing duo leads the standings with 43 points against 30 of Hunter Abbott and Raffaele Marciello and 25 of Anthony Liu, Davide Rizzo, Shaun Thong and Marchy Lee. Rounds 3 and 4 of the Blancpain GT Series Asia will be only next month, on May 20th and 21st at Buriram, Thailand.

PHOTO: Blancpain GT Series Asia

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