> Absolute’s Lamborghini bags top spot for Race 1
> Evans and Yu lock out Phantom’s Race 2 front row
> Results: Okayama Qualifying
Pole by four tenths marked Sandy Stuvik’s impressive GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS return at Okayama where Phantom’s Audis headed by Jaxon Evans also secured a front row lockout.
The Thai driver, who has joined Akash Nandy in Absolute Racing’s Lamborghini this weekend some four years after making his last outing, set four times fast enough to start P1 this afternoon, while the margin of advantage over this year’s established full-season Silvers was also striking.
Cheng Congfu starts alongside in FAW Audi Sport Team Phantom’s R8, which qualified ahead of David Chen Weian’s Fuji-winning Harmony Racing Ferrari and Lu Wei, who was fastest of the Am contingent. Takayuki Aoki’s 5ZIGEN Nissan completed a top five comprising as many different manufacturers.
Q2 then went the way of first-time pole winner Evans who beat his Phantom team-mate and best placed Silver class contender Yu Kuai by 0.251s. The Audis were followed by KRC’s two BMWs driven by Neil Verhhagen and Maxime Oosten, who bagged Silver-Am spoils, while Laurin Heinrich took the Origine Porsche he shares with Lu to fifth.
It was, however, a frustrating session for championship leaders Huang Ruohan and Alessandro Ghiretti who have work to do from 14th and 13th, respectively.
The first 15-minute session was initially topped by Aoki before Cheng moved a second clear. His time was then beaten by Stuvik who subsequently chipped away at his own provisional pole time over the next three laps. 1m28.982s was ultimately comfortably faster than anyone else could manage.
Cheng’s time remained good enough for a place on the front row despite Chen’s best efforts for Harmony who are nevertheless well placed to win at Okayama for the second time in as many years.
Further back, Anthony Liu starts sixth – right behind title rival Lu. Four points separate the pair, both of whom must serve a success penalty during their pitstops.
LM Corsa’s Ferrari and the Climax Racing Mercedes-AMG share row four, while two BMWs – the Plus with Team Studie example and KRC’s #89 M4 – round out the top 10.
Am pole went to Origine’s Porsche.
The second session was, in truth, a little less dramatic. Evans set the early pace, was bumped to third by KRC’s BMWs, and then responded next time around to establish an unassailable advantage with 1m27.993s.
Yu then improved to make it a Phantom Audi 1-2 but couldn’t get any closer than the near-three tenths gap thereafter.
Verhagen also improved to pip Oosten by a tenth, while Heinrich wound up fastest of Porsche’s stacked factory roster. Debutant and DTM champion Ayhancan Güven could only manage eighth – behind Brendon Leitch’s Ferrari and Atsushi Miyake’s Nissan – while Liu Kaishun and Nandy completed the first 10 runners.
This first of this weekend’s races is live on GT World’s YouTube channel at 13:00 JST (+9 GMT) today.