Buriram Official Practice: Picariello sets the pace once again

Buriram Official Practice: Picariello sets the pace once again

> GTO Racing with TTR top the GT4 times
> Result: Official Practice

Alessio Picariello set fastest time of the weekend so far during Blancpain GT World Challenge Asia’s Official Practice session at Buriram this morning, while Brian Lee topped the GT4 standings for GTO Racing with TTR.

The heavy rain that hampered yesterday afternoon’s running was replaced with bright, clear skies. And it was Picariello who once again prevailed in the dry conditions after also topping Friday’s first session.

Alex Imperatori’s Panther/AAS Motorsport Porsche led the way by a healthy 0.6s heading into the final 10 minutes but was pushed down to second by Craft-Bamboo’s #88 Mercedes-AMG with moments left on the clock. Picariello’s best of 1m33.977s was 0.287s faster than Imperatori, while Franky Cheng’s Absolute Racing Audi finished another tenth further back.

Triple Eight’s Mercedes-AMG was next up – Jazeman Jaafar lapping just 0.029s slower than the Audi ahead and three tenths quicker than Rio Haryanto’s T2 Motorsports Ferrari. Andre Couto’s TSRT R8 rounded out the top-six.

A third different crew in as many sessions topped the GT4 times thanks to GTO Racing with TTR’s Brian Lee whose 1m45.056s was the fastest in the class so far this weekend.

Sunako Jukuchou’s late improvement moved BMW Team Studie’s M4 to within three tenths, while Team iRace.Win’s #111 Mercedes-AMG finished third.

Qualifying begins at 11:15 local time. Watch it live here on www.gt-world-challenge-asia.com/live and across the championship’s social media platforms.