> Result: FP2
Absolute Racing’s Adderly Fong gave Audi top spot in Blancpain GT Series Asia’s second practice session at Suzuka earlier this evening, while the GT4 honours once again went to GruppeM’s #666 Mercedes-AMG.
Times were much slower in the second 45-minute session than they had been in the first despite the weather remaining fine and dry. Ultimately it was Fong’s 2m03.396s lap – almost a second slower than Raffaele Marciello’s FP1 benchmark – that proved fast enough to top the session by 0.296s from the Craft-Bamboo Porsche shared by Darryl O’Young and Aidan Read.
Roelof Bruins and Juwon Seo’s Indigo Racing Mercedes-AMG finished third fastest after beating FP1’s top two drivers, Tim Slade (HubAuto Corsa Ferrari) and GruppeM’s Marciello, who had to settle for fifth this time around. The second Absolute Audi shared by Martin Rump and Franky Cheng completed a top-six covered by 0.7s.
GT4 once again went the way of GruppeM’s Mercedes-AMG, although this time it was championship leader Reinhold Renger who posted the time. His best of 2m17.371s was 1.7s slower than co-driver and debutant Ryuichirou Ohtsuka set in FP1 but 1.2s clear of the same #81 BMW Team Studie M4 driven by Sunako Jukuchou and Takayuki Kinoshita that also finished second earlier in the day.
Keo Chang and George Chou were third in their Taiwan Top Speed Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport, while TTR Team SARD (Porsche) and Clearwater (McLaren) rounded out the top-five.
Tomorrow’s final practice session takes place at 08:10 ahead of qualifying and the weekend’s first hour-long race.