GruppeM Racing had all the reasons to celebrate in the first race of the Blancpain GT Series Asia weekend with double class wins of the GT3 and GT4 variations of the Mercedes AMG GT highlighted by smooth races without threats.
The inside line got the speed advantage allied to the position advantage at the start line, so the No. 999 GruppeM Mercedes was followed by the No. 19 FFF Lamborghini, leaving the No. 27 HubAuto Ferrari in third.
Unlike the early minutes of racing, the No. 19 was losing ground to the No. 999, while the No. 27 lost pace and relinquished the battle for second to hold a hard charging No. 23 KCMG Nissan. The GT4 class had things going well for GruppeM too as the No. 666 Mercedes was leading with some gap to the No. 81 Studie BMW after an intense battle in the initial moments.
The pit window reduced the gap between the No. 999 and the No. 19, but in fact the scenario was still the same, with the Lamborghini not having the speed to go past the Mercedes. In GT4, even a spin couldn’t get the No. 666 GruppeM Mercedes out of the top spot, keeping its position without near threats.
Martin Kodric in the No. 19 received a lot of help from the backmarkers to take the lead as Markus Pommer was getting stuck for some time trying to get rid of the slower cars, but a stop and go penalty saw the lead being stripped away of the No. 19, what opened the way to the No. 999 to cruise right to the finish and the overall victory, with the same happening to the No. 666 Mercedes in GT4.
Between the GT3s, the No. 63 FFF Lamborghini got a close Pro-Am win against the No. 18 KCMG Nissan while the No. 45 KCMG Audi conquered the Am Cup with quite a dominant performance.
PHOTO: SRO
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