Phantom sweeps GTWC Asia weekend at Okayama

The GT World Challenge Asia weekend at Okayama was another proof that the Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II is still going strong despite the limited official support, with Audi Sport Team Phantom getting the wins of the weekend with the No. 16 FAW machine of Congfu Cheng and Kuai Yu and the No. 15 car of Andrés Pato and Jaxon Evans.
 
The No. 29 Absolute Lamborghini kept the lead once the first race started, with the No. 16 FAW Audi was left to protect the second place from the No. 96 Harmony Ferrari. Since the No. 11 Origine Porsche wasn’t advancing, the No. 500 5ZIGEN Nissan took fourth position in a brake challenge down the back straight.
 
The race was in route to a quiet first stint, but in typical Okayama fashion, rain arrived and in the worst way possible, as it washed the home straight while the rest of the track was dry, sending both the No. 72 Harmony Ferrari and the No. 20 Absolute Porsche to the gravel, with the latter even hitting hard the barriers, bringing a full course yellow and a Safety Car intervention several minutes later. With the rain being brief, while some teams prepared rain tires for change during the mandatory pit stop, some of them remained on slicks.
 
With the chaos that was the pit window, the No. 16 was leading and the No. 500 was chasing, with the No. 96 leading the pack behind them. Despite the fact that Atsushi Miyake stood within a second behind Yu Kuai for the whole second stint, there was no pace to reach the No. 16 FAW Audi, allowing it to win the race without a single attack.
 
The No. 89 KRC BMW barged its way to the overall podium and won easily the Pro-Am Cup, with the No. 10 GTO KRC BMW doing the same to be fourth overall and to win the Silver-Am Cup. The No. 8 Climax Mercedes completed the list of class winners by taking the Am Cup top spot after defending it from the No. 75 Garage 75 Ferrari.
 
GTWC Asia - Okayama Race 1 results
 

The Phantom Audis had the front row for themselves in Race 2, with the KRC BMWs lined right behind them, but the problem was that lots of pushing and shoving involved other cars behind, and while the No. 10 GTO KRC BMW aligned behind the leading No. 15 Phantom Audi, the No. 500 5ZIGEN Nissan and the No. 911 Absolute Porsche were crawling with damaged bodies after the first lap melee.
 
Later on, the No. 89 KRC BMW took a hit and spun, and while no cars stood still on track, lots of debris littered it, forcing a full course yellow to clean the mess. Once the green flag was back, Jaxon Evans was easy prey for Maxime Oosten and Laurin Heinrich, but since the pace was too similar and the narrow track didn’t allow wide moves, they remained in a train where the No. 10 was separating the No. 15 from the No. 11 Origine Porsche.
 
Before the pit window, Heinrich moved to second by taking Oosten’s slipstream for the brake challenge, but neither the clean air nor the pitwork made a difference in the battle for first, with the No. 15 Phantom Audi retaining the lead after the mandatory stop.
 
The problem for the No. 15 was that Wei Lu was faster than Andrés Pato, and he was drawing Brian Lee and Anthony Liu to possibly turn the lead battle into a four-way melee. Due to the backmarkers, the No. 10 and the No. 37 lost touch and the lead battle was essentially between the No. 15 and the No. 11, with Andrés Pato keeping the No. 15 Phantom Audi in first until the line with a more robust defense, prevailing by a mere 0.089 seconds over the No. 11 Origine Porsche, with the No. 10 GTO KRC BMW coming two seconds later to be third overall and win the Silver-Am Cup.
 
At the back of that leading pack, the No. 96 Harmony Ferrari won the Silver with the fifth position overall, while the No. 22 Origine Porsche won the Am Cup and was relatively close of scoring an overall top 10.
 
GTWC Asia - Okayama Race 2 results
 
With the SRO GT Powertour over, GT World Challenge Asia now heads to China to complete the season, starting with the Beijing Street Circuit on 3 and 4 October.
 
PHOTOS: SRO