The first race of the Blancpain
GT Series Asia at Shanghai had a bit of
everything as Audi Hong Kong with Marchy
Lee and Shaun Thong emerged victorious between a
handful of candidates for first place, leading and all-Audi podium
with OD Racing and its sister Phoenix-run R8 LMS.
Green flag waved in a rather damp road
and there was some rubbing between the No. 66 VSR Lamborghini
and the No. 277 HubAuto Porsche while the No. 88
CRAFT-Bamboo Porsche was effectively knocked out with
left rear corner contact damage. The No. 66 and the No. 277 would met
each other again a few seconds later, only for another tap to happen
so the No. 277 went for a spin, and with this the No. 1 FFF
Lamborghini took the lead with Aidan Read while the Safety Car
was called while the first lap mess was cleaned.
In the restart the No. 1
was with the No. 99 CRAFT-Bamboo Porsche right behind in the chase,
and with most of the areas of the circuit being almost dry between
the white lines it was time to take some risks and attack for real, and
this was exactly what Mitch Gilbert in the No. 86 OD Racing Audi was
up for, jumping to third from fifth in less than a lap while the No.
66 VSR Lamborghini retook the lead from the No. 1.
Gilbert was on fire as he forced from
the outside into Read, and while the No. 1 defended bravely, the No. 86
found a gap once the other car lost a bit of balance and went past it
for second. Gilbert kept the charge and passed Stuvik, but he and
Marchy Lee in the No. 5 Audi found out that it would take a serious
fight to go past Stuvik, although the VSR car pitted early while the
Audis kept going, with Lee going to pits a lap later.
Aditya Patel took the No. 86 from
Gilbert and was feeling the difficulties of having slick tires in a
track with some wet points, and when he went wide for the wet
astroturf and spun, with luck on his side as the car was back facing
the correct line, but when he was accelerating the No. 5 Audi passed
for second place. Another game changer was a drive through penalty
for the leading No. 66 due to the first lap contact, which promoted
the No. 5 to the lead with some advantage to the No. 86 OD Racing
Audi with 20 minutes to go.
The final part of the race was about
the No. 86 making up for the lost time and chasing the No. 5, and
although Patel tried, it wasn't enough to pose a threat to the No. 5
and Shaun Thong as the golden car saw the checkered flag first and
won the Silver Cup. The No. 6 Audi completed the podium and
was the GT3 Pro-Am Cup winner.
Lone runner Andrew Haryanto won in the
GT3 Am Cup with the No. 27 X-One
Lamborghini after a stunning drive which saw him go to a
highest of sixth and then third before the pit stops, and the No. 77
CRAFT-Bamboo Porsche won in the GT4 Cup with another
dominant performance of Jean Marc Merlin and Frank Yu.
PHOTO: Phoenix Racing Asia
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