The teams took to the track of the Zhuhai International Circuit at the second race weekend at the 2017 China GT Championship. This rainy and somewhat capricious Zhuhai summer is making this battle for pole an eventful and exciting one.
A star-studded lineup has formed up the grid at the Zhuhai race weekend: the first Hong Kong born Formula One test driver, Bentley Team Absolute’s Adderly Fong; PCCA veterans and JRM stars Chris van der Drift, Will Bamber, Maxime Jousse and Andrew Tang; Macau F3 Grand Prix winner André Couto of Spirit Z-Racing; 2016 Audi R8 LMS Cup bronze medalist Martin Rump of Kings Racing; the first Chinese Formula One test driver, ZIA FEA’s latest recruit Ma Qinghua; and China GT’s first female driver Yuan Tingting of LEO 109. These well-known names in GT racing are gracing the tracks during second showdown at China GT.
During the season opener, 10 cars have broken the lap record (01:03.572) of the Beijing Goldenport circuit in the very first round of qualifying. The speeds and high performance of these China GT contenders were a real senstaion, and Zhuhai is no less exicitng. In the GT3 Class, the lap times set by each driver are only seperated by a mere fraction of a second. In the end, the pair of Adderly Fong and Vutthikorn Inthraphuvasak snatched pole positoin in a #88 Bentley Continental GT3 for Bentley Team Aboslute with a impressive time of 1:36.716. Audi Hong Kong has made a strong return in Zhuhai claiming a close second and third. The partnership of Marchy Lee and Alex Au set a time of 1:36.798, less than 0.4s clear of Lu Biao and Melvin Moh at 1:37.121.
From 4th place to 12th in the GT3 Class are: Andrew Kim and Weiron Tan for Bentley Team Absolute, Max Wiser and Huang Chuhan for TSRT Tianshi Racing, Wang Liang and Martin Rump for Kings Racing, Chris van der Drift and Li Chao for JRM JiaRui – TengDa, Xu Jia for Kings Racing, Morris Chen and Marco Seefried for FAW T2M, Maxime Jousse and Li Jiaqi for JRM JiaRui – TengDa, Andre Couto and Yuey Tan for Spirit Z-Racing, H.G.and Alexandre Imperatori for Hard Memory Bentley Team Absolute.
The subsequent GTC and GT4 races were equally as exciting. In the GTC class, the TSRT Shanxi Tianshi team re-joined China GT after a successful 2016 season. Chen Wei’an and Jiao Peng stole pole position with a time of 1:38.351 in the Audi R8 LMS. Kimi Qin drove his Audi R8 LMS to take second for Spirit Z-Racing, with a time of 1:38.613, leaving the partnership of Xu Wei and Ling Kang to pick up the third place for Xtreme Motorsports in the Radical Rxc V6, who ran a time of 1:38.955.
The rest of the drivers in the GTC class are ranked in the following order from fourth to thirteenth place: Huang Hsi Chan for D2, Chen Junhua and Li Yueqin for Top Speed, Yang Yuan for KINGS, Suttiluck Buncharoen for True Visions, Xie Ruilin for Spirit Z-Racing, Bian Hao and Will Bamber for JRM Force China, Wang Tao and Shang Lei, also for JRM Force China, Lu Zhiwei for DMS, Li Xuefeng for JRM Elite and Yuan Tingting for LEO 109.
At the same time, the GT4 class has also got off to a flying start. Yang Zhiyi and Ma Qinghua blazed a trail to victory with a time of 1:48.053 in their Aston Martin Vantage GT4, snatching pole position in the GT4 class for ZIA FEA Racing. Lo Sze Ho and Chen Yinian drove the KTM X-Bow GT4 for Xtreme Motorsports, eventually seizing second place with a time of 1:48.626, while Tian Xu and Yang Mengqiao came third representing China Equity AMR with a time of 1:49.444. Eric Wong and Anthony Chan for Team Lotus and Zhang Dongqi and Yin Jinge for ZIA FEA Racing came fourth and fifth in the GT4 class.
The excitement of qualifying has left us wanting more. Round 3 of the 2017 China GT Championship takes place in Zhuhai tomorrow – bring it on!
