RESULT: FP2
Super GT star Tsugio Matsuda set fastest time for KCMG and Nissan in second practice at Sepang earlier today ahead of tomorrow’s Blancpain GT Series Asia qualifying and opening race. Meanwhile, Team iRace.Win’s Gilles Vannelet once again topped the GT4 standings.
Lap times were significantly slower than the day’s first practice session, with Matsuda’s best of 2m05.079s a full two seconds down on Raffaele Marciello’s FP1 benchmark. Nevertheless, the Japanese ace’s time was still sufficient to claim top spot by 0.030s from FFF Racing Team by ACM’s Dennis Lind and Martin Kodric, while HubAuto Corsa’s #28 Ferrari driven by Tim Slade wound up another 0.2s further back.
Absolute Racing’s Audis finished in number order to round out the top-six, with the #3 R8 LMS GT3 shared by Franky Cheng and Martin Rump beating the team’s sister #7 and #37 entries.
Morning pace-setters GruppeM Racing were seventh, albeit less than half-a-second shy of Matsuda’s time, while KCMG’s Silver Cup-entered Nissan GT-R completed the top-eight.
Gilles Vannelet once again showed the way in GT4, although his fastest lap of 2m18.943s was a second down on the morning’s best.
The Team iRace.Win Mercedes-AMG GT4 he shares with Ringo Chong ended FP2 0.139s clear of GruppeM’s similar chassis, while BMW Team Studie and Craft-Bamboo Racing completed row two.
Saturday’s third and final practice session begins at 09:00 ahead of qualifying and the weekend’s opening race. Watch the latter live on Blancpain GT Series Asia’s website and Facebook page.