> Phantom’s R8 beats Origine’s Porsche by just 0.089s
> Lee and Oosten top Silver-Am once again
> Class wins for Chen/Liu and Wang/Liu
> Okayama Race 2 Result
Audi Sport Asia Team Phantom collected its second GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS victory in as many days at Okayama where Andres Pato and Jaxon Evans beat Lu Wei and Laurin Heinrich by just 0.089s in Race 2.
Their evergreen R8’s win from pole followed hot on the heels of Cheng Congfu and Yu Kuai triumphing for a second time in 2026 on Saturday afternoon. But while that was achieved in comparative comfort, Pato was pushed all the way by Lu whose Origine Porsche almost won a drag race to the chequered flag.
GTO with KRC’s Brian Lee held off Anthony Liu to complete the overall podium and collect back-to-back Silver-Am wins alongside Maxime Oosten, while Chen Weian and Liu Kaishun (Harmony Racing) took Silver class honours in fifth. Am victory went the way of Origine’s Wang Zhongwei and Liu Hangcheng.
Okayama has been another good event for Lu who arrived four points behind long-time championship pace setters Huang Ruohan and Alessandro Ghiretti. He established a slender advantage yesterday and now leads by 22 points ahead of this year’s penultimate event in Beijing on October 2-4 after the Absolute Porsche was forced into early retirement today.
Origine’s results have also contributed towards Porsche overturning Mercedes-AMG’s global GT World Challenge lead before Europe and America stage races later today.
There’s also significant change atop Asia’s SRO GT Academy standings where Yu and Oosten have moved up to first and second at Atsushi Miyake’s expense.
More to follow.
Okayama Race 2: Pato and Evans complete Audi’s weekend sweep
> Phantom’s R8 beats Origine’s Porsche by just 0.089s
> Lee and Oosten top Silver-Am once again
> Class wins for Chen/Liu and Wang/Liu
> Okayama Race 2 Result
Audi Sport Asia Team Phantom collected its second GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS victory in as many days at Okayama where Andrés Pato and Jaxon Evans beat Lu Wei and Laurin Heinrich by just 0.089s in Race 2.
Their evergreen R8’s win from pole followed hot on the heels of Cheng Congfu and Yu Kuai triumphing for a second time in 2026 on Saturday afternoon. But while that was achieved in comparative comfort, Pato was pushed all the way by Lu whose Origine Porsche almost won a drag race to the chequered flag.
GTO with KRC’s Brian Lee held off Anthony Liu (Phantom Global) to complete the overall podium and collect back-to-back Silver-Am wins alongside Maxime Oosten, while Chen Weian and Liu Kaishun (Harmony Racing) took Silver class honours in fifth. Am victory went the way of Origine’s Wang Zhongwei and Liu Hangcheng.
Okayama has been another good event for Lu who arrived four points behind long-time championship pace setters Huang Ruohan and Alessandro Ghiretti. He established a slender advantage yesterday and now leads by 22 points ahead of this year’s penultimate event in Beijing on October 2-4 after the Absolute Porsche was forced into early retirement today.
Origine and Phantom Global’s results have also contributed towards Porsche overturning Mercedes-AMG’s global GT World Challenge lead before Europe and America stage races later today.
There’s also significant change atop Asia’s SRO GT Academy standings where Yu and Oosten have moved up to first and second at Atsushi Miyake’s expense.
That is partly explained by his and 5ZIGEN’s blameless role in the clash at Turn 3 on lap one that forced the Nissan to pit but also accounted for Ghiretti and Akash Nandy. Both braked heavily attempting to avoid the delayed Nissan when it was squeezed between Ayhancan Güven’s Porsche and Neil Verhagen, whose BMW was rejoining after running wide. The resulting domino effect also sent Klaus Bachler spinning into the wall and earned Verhagen – who spun in a separate incident at the start of the following lap – a 10-second penalty for causing a collision.
Racing resumed after a short FCY period with the top five of Evans, Oosten, Heinrich, Güven and Yu running together. And that order remained unchanged until just before the pitstops when Origine’s Porsche relieved the BMW of second.
Evans handed over to Pato leading by 2.6s, a gap that initially remained largely unchanged before Lu started closing in. At one point the top four and rapidly approaching Chen, who was the best placed Silver driver in fifth, looked likely to run nose-to-tail, but with Lee struggling in third and preoccupied by Liu the top two were able to create a little breathing space.
Lu was soon on Pato’s tail but couldn’t find an opening until spots of rain with five minutes remaining offered fresh hope. His chance finally came on the last lap when a failed under and over attempt forced the Audi into a defensive line through the penultimate corner, which then compromised its exit out of the final turn. But although Lu had better traction, he wasn’t quite able to pull far enough alongside on the run to the chequered flag.
Lee completed the podium by holding off Liu who came under increasing pressure from Chen’s Ferrari without ever facing a serious challenge.
Li Lichao and Elias Seppänen fought through from 11th to finish sixth and give Climax the result its practice pace had hinted at, while Song Jiajun brought Apex Predator Harmony’s Ferrari home seventh following Brendon Leitch’s good work in the opening stint.
A combined 41 seconds of success and Silver pitstop time meant Cheng and Yu were unlikely to challenge for outright honours despite sharing the front row with Pato/Evans. But they did at least score handy points towards the overall and class championships by completing the top eight ahead of LM Corsa’s Ferrari and Porsche Center Okazaki’s 911.