Roelof Bruins secures GT4 championship title three rounds before the end of the 2017 season. Drama-filled race saw JRM’s Li Chao and Chris van der Drift to GT3 victory ahead of the two Kings Racing’s Xu Wei and Naoki Yokomizo, and Xu Jia and Jake Dennis. This result has elevated the JRM pair to second in the GT3 standings, and Xu Jia to the lead. The GTC battle brewed between the championship’s three top contenders. Will Bamber and Bian Hao, and Andrew Tang and Pan Chao closed the championship gap by taking a JRM 1-2 ahead of points leader D2’s CJ Huang. It was back-to-back GT4 victory and a flawless weekend for Ross Gunn and Yang Mengqiao of ChinaEquity AMR. The Winning Team’s Roelof Bruins and David McIntyre and ChinaEquity AMR’s Zhou Yong and Dewey Lin completed the podium.
GT3 Class
Another eventful race saw four cars retiring from the GT3 gird. D2 Racing has employed a different strategy by putting their Pro-rated driver on the starting grid, and it seemed to be working perfectly until the later Safety Car sessions, and the eventual contact with the #07 Audi.
Maxx Ebenal had a great start from P3, quickly moving to the left of the grid to take the outside line of Turn 1 and passing front row sitters JRM’s Li Chao and Kings’ Xu Jia. Li Chao then came under fire by a charging Wang Liang in the #08 Kings Racing entry. However, the Audi’s rear stepped out around the sweeping right of Turn 11 and spun into the gravel traps, which prompted the Safety Car.
As if this wasn’t bad enough for the young Canadian, who had been consistently pumping out quickest laps throughout his stint, another Safety Car came out shortly after the restart to rescue the #991 Porsche of Li Jiaqi, who made contract with a GTC car and stalled outside Turn 2. That incident essentially spelled the end of the first half of the session, as cars started pitting in droves for driver change.
A late pit stop saw Ebenal’s co-driver Kuo Kuo Hsin coming out just ahead of the orange #911 Porsche of Chris van der Drift. The New Zealander chased down the AMG and forced Kuo to run wide at the final corner. The two came head to head for P1 down the main straight but it was van der Drift who occupied the inside line and took the lead into Turn 1.
More bad luck for Kuo as he made contact with former European Formula 3 champion Jake Dennis, resulting in a puncture and the eventual DNF. Dennis in the #07 Audi followed Kuo closely into Turn 2, not expecting the latter to brake early and ran into the AMG’s left rear as a result. He also suffered right front damage.
The race then was then van der Drift to lose when Dennis and Marco Seefried in the FAW T2M Porsche were both handed a Drive-through Penalty by the Stewards for contact. Naoki Yokomizo in the #17 Kings AMG made the most of this opportunity to take second and the first podium of the season with teammate Xu Wei. Jake Dennis crossed the finish line 18 seconds behind the leader to complete the podium.
The #89 entry was subsequently disqualified for failing to serve the Drive-through penalty within three laps after the decision was given.
GTC Class
Despite having a good start, championship leader and pole-sitter CJ Huang could not pull away as he soon found himself sandwiched between two GT3 cars in front. Shang Lei of JRM brought his #998 Lamborghini Super Trofeo from the back of the grid up to P2 by the end of lap 6, overtaking teammates Zheng Hui, Pan Chao and Bian Hao in quick succession.
Solo driver Huang had hoped to create some gap with the rest of the pack in the first stint before the pit window brings out the professional drivers. However, his strategy was compromised by the two lengthy Safety Car sessions as a result of GT3 incidents. Will Bamber in the #303 JRM Lamborghini swapped out teammate Bian Hao and went on a long campaign for victory, and did so by muscling past a struggling Huang at the final chicane on lap 21.
Andrew Tang also made his move against Huang – who has been racing for over 50 minutes at this point - down the inside of Turn 1 to claim the second spot for the GTC Class.
JRM’s #900 entry Zheng Hui, and #998 of Wang Tao and Shang Lei finished on points in fourth and fifth.
GT4 Class
Good start for David McIntyre, who was out-qualified by championship rival Xtreme Motorsports, but passed the #86 KTM X-Bow right after the green light with one swift motion into Turn 1. Meanwhile, pole-sitter and Round 9 winner Yang Mengqiao had a clear start and began to pull away.
#77 Zhou Yong of ChinaEquity AMR saw an opportunity to pass the colliding #36 Lotus Evora and #55 Ginetta, but immediately found himself spinning into the gravel. Zhou – a great rally driver that he is - managed to dig himself out of the trap and recover lost time behind the Safety Car that was called out to rescue the beached #721 ZIA FEA Aston Martin.
Dewey Lin in the #77 China Equity AMR came out of the pit sandwiched between Billy Lo’s KTM and Bruins’ McLaren. The former rally driver made an aggressive move against Lo and squeezed past the KTM into Turn 8. Championship winning Bruins also took full advantage of the McLaren’s powerful twin-turbo V-8 engine and overtook Lo on the main straight into Turn 1, and then repeated a similar move 10 laps later on Lin. Roelof Bruins has secured the GT4 championship three rounds before the end of the season.
By this point, Ross Gunn has created an unassailable advantage over his rivals. He finished the race more than 50 seconds ahead of the rest of the GT4 pack and took back-to-back victory for the #618 with teammate Yang Mengqiao.
Xtreme Motorsports had a disappointing weekend and finished outside the podium. Team Lotus’ remaining #28 entry fielded by Anthony Chan and Julio Acosta suffered an early electric problem, which cost them nearly two laps. Despite a brilliant recovery by Acosta in the second half, the team could only finish P5 ahead of ZIA FEA Racing’s Zhang Dongqi and Yin Jinge.
