> Result: FP2
Adderly Fong ensured Absolute Racing and Audi Sport ended the opening day of Blancpain GT Series Asia practice on top at Buriram ahead of qualifying and the weekend’s first race tomorrow.
The R8 LMS GT3 he shares with Andrew Kim posted the day’s fastest time just before a Full Course Yellow period, his 1m33.886s lap beating Patric Niederhauser’s previous FP1 benchmark by half-a-second.
It was also sufficient to see off HubAuto Corsa’s Tim Slade who lapped 0.114s slower in the #28 Ferrari he shares with Morris Chen.
Dennis Lind and Martin Kodric’s FFF Racing Team by ACM Lamborghini was again amongst the top-three and this time fastest of the Silver Cup contingent courtesy of their 1m34.175s effort, while KCMG’s Tsguio Matsuda also remained a familiar presence in fourth.
FP1 saw as many different manufacturers represented in the top-four, but the class went one better this afternoon by adding a fifth after Mercedes-AMG factory driver Maxi Buhk was joined on row three by Niederhauser. Just 0.012s separated GruppeM’s team-mates, with KCMG’s second Nissan of Florian Strauss and Edoardo Liberati another 0.002s back in seventh.
Absolute Racing’s two remaining Audis, OD Racing’s R8 LMS and ARN Racing’s Ferrari completed a top-11 separated by just 0.8s.
Elsewhere, Mercedes-AMG maintained its place at the top of GT4 for a second practice session running, but this time it was the Team iRace.Win example shared by Gilles Vanellet and Ringo Chong that topped the times. Their best of 1m45.222s was a tenth quicker than Reinhold Renger had managed in FP1 and just 0.088s faster than the best of BMW Team Studie’s M4s driven by Sunako Jukuchou and Takayuki Kinoshita.
Final practice takes place at 09:00 tomorrow ahead of qualifying and the weekend’s first 60-minute race.