2018 China GT Shanghai R7 Qualifying Report

Damp conditions made for tricky tyre strategies but it was the Porsche of Li Chao and Chris van der Drift who snatched pole for GT3; CJ Huang and Kevin Chen/Ivan Lee set the pace for GTC and GT4 respectively.  

GT3 Class

Li Chao and Chris van der Drift put the Team JRM Porsche on pole for the first time in the 2018 season. Changing track conditions in GT3 qualifying throw a spanner in the works as teams scramble to find the right tyres for each session. Van der Drift set the time on wets, and by Q2 the track began to dry and Li Chao put in the quickest overall time of 02:10.549 on slicks.

New entry of Eric Zang of Jan Seyffarth was pipped to pole by less than 0.2 seconds, but they beat Championship leader and KINGS teammates Xu Jia and Alessio Picariello to the second spot on the front row.

The R+ Racing Porsche of Li Jiaqi and Pan Chao took fourth ahead of D2’s Kuo Kuo Hsin.

Rick Meng in the R+ Racing AMG did not start in qualifying.


GTC Class

CJ Huang set his personal best on lap 5 and lap 4 in Friday’s respective qualifying sessions. His average time of 2:19.251 is well ahead of P2 scorers, championship leaders Song Bo and Dominic Ang. What’s more, Huang’s time of 02:11.739 in Q2 was unrivalled - almost 6 seconds quicker than the next best time set by the Xtreme Motorsports rivals. The Radical duo was feeling unhappy with the car in wet conditions, but Saturday’s race is predicted to be dry and they feel like they have a good chance to challenge Huang for the lead.

New entry Eagleeyed Racing’s Jason Zhang and Jeffrey Zee put the Audi R8 LMS Cup car on the fourth row on a mixed GT3 and GTC grid.

Further behind, two Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars will occupy the fifth row, with R+ Racing’s Wang Tao/Wu Pei on the clean side, and Eagleeyed Racing’s Daniel Lu and Lawrence Liu on the other.

Then came Simon Chan and Ben Rouget’s #7 Porsche in sixth, despite a valiant effort by the Frenchman who set the GTC benchmark in Q1 in the wet. Paul Wong of KINGS Racing went seventh quickest ahead of R+ Racing’s Shang Lei and Zheng Hui.

#69 and #68 were classified as DNS for Friday qualifying.



GT4 Class

Kevin Chen and Ivan Lee of Fist Team AAI stormed to GT4 pole with a combined time of 02:35.924 on wet tyres. The Taiwanese duo hasn’t had much luck since getting the first 2018 pole in Zhuhai, but both gentlemen drivers had set competitive lap times to vault them to the top of the timesheet.

Championship contender Ryan Liu and Jack Mitchell were 0.2s off the pace but the Briton had set the fastest lap (02:33.810) in the class overall.

Julio Acosta and Robert Webb of Team Lotus are a further 0.8s behind, having only just returned to the China GT fray and still familiarising themselves with the new Michelin tyres.

A second Lotus of Dominic Ang and Anthony Chan will start alongside their Team Lotus teammates, with an average time of 02:37.139.

K2C Motorsports’ Sennan Fielding and Kenny Chung, and Xtreme Motorsports’ Thomas Ashton and Lo SzeHo will start from the third row.

Both of the McLarens and a second Aston Martin of #619 failed to make a start for qualifying due to mechanical woes.