A seventh victory alongside Alessio Picariello sealed Xu Jia’s championship for 2018. Song Bo and Dominic Ang shared GTC spoils and Xtreme Motorsports teammates Lo Sze Ho and Thomas Ashton triumphed in the GT4.
GT3 Class
Xu Jia was crowned China GT drivers’ champion for the second year running in the GT3 category, after he and Kings Racing teammate Alessio Picariello edged out the #911 Porsche of Chris van der Drift and Li Chao by less than half a second to win the first race at the SAIC International Circuit here in Shanghai on Saturday.
Starting from pole position and knowing second place here would be enough to guarantee him the GT3 driver’s title, Xu was given an almighty scare on the very first lap when his Kings Racing stablemate Eric Zang ran wide alongside him into the first corner, losing the back end of his Mercedes-AMG and spinning into the run-off area.
Shrugging off the disappointment of seeing his teammate out of contention so early on, Xu set about trying to build his lead, but was pushed hard by the two Porsches of Li Chao and Pan Chao, who swapped places at several points during the opening exchanges.
The race continued in this vein without much in the way of incident until just before the pit stop window opened, when Zang, who was pushing hard to make up for time lost after his first corner spin, once again overcooked it at Turn 1, spinning and beaching his car in the gravel beyond the tarmac run-off area and bringing out the safety car.
Many of the front-runners decided to pit their cars at the first opportunity, and when the dust settled and all the stops had been made, Xu Jia’s teammate Alessio Picariello soon settled back into first position, with Li Chao’s teammate Chris van der Drift setting off in hot pursuit.
The New Zealander was giving the lie to pre-race predictions that the Porsches might struggle at this circuit where power is paramount, as he repeatedly reeled in Picariello to the tune of around half a second per lap. It looked as if van der Drift might catch the Belgian on the last lap but Picariello had just enough in hand to cross the line first, just 0.4 seconds ahead of the hard charging New Zealander.
Speaking after the race, Picariello acknowledged that this had been an especially tough race. “It was the hardest race I’ve had in China GT this year,” said the Belgian. “The safety car screwed us up a bit and I was really suffering in the last five laps. Chris was catching me really badly, and it was even hard for me to keep it on track, so one hour was just enough for us.”
Behind the leading duo, the #777 Porsche of Pan Chao and Zhang Dasheng finished a distant third, followed by the #2 D2 AMG of Kuo Kuo Hsin, who had started the race well down the order after problems in Friday’s qualifying session.
Elsewhere, the #991 “pink pig” Porsche of Lin Nan and Min Heng took fifth place, while the #5 Mercedes-AMG of Rick Meng and Xiao Min were classified sixth in GT3.
CTC Class
Having been crowned 2018 GTC champion at the previous round in Wuhan, CJ Huang started on pole position with 50kg of success ballast on his back. Despite this, the Taiwanese driver’s pace was on par with his GT3 rivals and he soon came up to fourth position overall behind the leading group.
However, the lap 9 Safety Car eliminated Huang’s lead over his GTC rivals, and to further add to his chagrin, he was handed a 60-second time penalty mid-race after his team released him 4.9 seconds before his mandatory pit stop time had been completed.
This meant that even though Huang left the pits in P1, he was essentially relegated to fourth position behind Wang Tao’s #307 Porsche. At the same time, his tyres and brakes performance began to drop, allowing the #25 Radical of Dominic Ang and Song Bo to assume the lead.
Song started his stint from second place but lost a position to teammate Liu Kai, who had started a few rows behind after suffering technical problems during qualifying. Song co-driver Dominic Ang was quick to catch up to the front-runners, and overhauled teammate Thomas Ashton in the #68 and Huang in quick succession to take the lead. Ang crossed the line merely seconds ahead of Huang, but it was the Xtreme Motorsports pairing of Ashton and Liu Kai who took second after Huang’s time penalty was applied.
Porsche were well represented in today’s GTC, with Daniel Lu and Lawrence Liu in the #9 69 Racing entry finishing fourth, closely followed by Wang Tao in the #307 R+ Racing entry.
Jacky Wu and Jeffrey Zee completed the top seven, while #119 and #10 both retired early in the race.
GT4 Class
Lo Sze Ho and Thomas Ashton took a dominant pole yesterday, but today’s race was not all plain sailing for the KTM duo. The Hong Kong driver was obliged to take a drive-through penalty carried over from the previous round in Wuhan for causing a first lap accident. He served his penalty after the first lap and was consigned to the back of the field.
Stanley Yang in the #618 Aston Martin made an impressive start, storming into the lead from P2 in one sweeping move in the opening lap. However, he soon had a target on his back when Laura Kraihamer in the #87 KTM finally shook off Dong Liang’s relentless charge. The top three of Yang, Kraihamer and Dong then engaged in an intense battle and began to pull away from the rest of the pack.
After a multi-lap scrap between Yang and Kraihamer, the Austrian driver finally made it stick when she overhauled Yang at the T6 hairpin on lap 6. She stayed out for a few more laps after the pit window opened before handing the car to co-driver Bo Lemastus in first position. Dong Liang jumped the #618 for P2 due to his shorter mandatory pit stop. However, he was soon overtaken by the more experienced GT4 campaigner Jack Mitchell a few laps later. The top three was temporarily set for the start of the second stint.
Further back, Lo Sze Ho managed to climb back to fifth before Ashton began his hunt for glory behind the #619 of Yves Volte, who had overtaken teammate #999 at this point. He then began to churn out quickest laps and closed in on the top three.
He overhauled Dong Liang for P3 on lap 18, Mitchell one lap later and soon came hot on the heels of teammate Lemastus. The American driver had a solid second stint, but was not able to hold off the charging Ashton and relinquished the lead to the Briton.
Jack Mitchell then passed the #87 into T1 on the final lap to steal second place from the KTM. Lemastus finished on the podium 13 seconds ahead of Winning Team’s Dong Liang, who was first among the Am/Am drivers on the grid today.
Further down the field, the #619 of Yves Volte and Rodney Tu, #91 of Kevin Chen and Ivan Lee and #570 of David McIntyre and Charlie Fagg crossed the line nose to tail.
Aston Martin’s #999 of Shang Zongyi and David Pun held on to their starting position in eighth, ahead of the #55 K2C Ginetta of Sennan Fielding and Kenny Chung.
The #721 entry of Yu Zhao and Yang Zhiyi rounded out the top 10 after an early problem consigned them to the pits for a few laps.
Team Lotus’ #98 retired after an early problem and #28 also stopped out on track five laps later.
#91 was disqualified from the race for parc ferme infringement, moving the #570, #888, #55, #721 one position up to sixth onto ninth.
