> Result: Official Practice
Kei Cozzolino set the fastest time of Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia Powered by AWS’s week so far in Official Practice at Suzuka earlier this afternoon.
The CarGuy Racing Ferrari he shares with Takeshi Kimura clocked 2m01.414s after 18 minutes of the hour-long session to ultimately beat D’station Racing’s Tomonobu Fujii by 0.3s.
The time was significantly faster than this morning’s best and also 0.3s quicker than Fujii managed during Thursday’s opening test, which had remained quickest of all.
The Ferrari and Aston Martin were followed by four more manufacturers – Mercedes-AMG, Audi, Porsche and McLaren – although none were within a second of either CarGuy or D’station.
Jazeman Jaafar maintained Triple Eight JMR’s strong start to the weekend by lapping third quickest after his team-mate Nick Foster had earlier finished Free Practice in the same position.
There was also encouraging signs for Audi Sport Asia Team X Works whose weekend was seriously compromised by a Free Practice fire that has ruled its #91 entry out. Instead, David Pun has swapped across to the sister R8 LMS previously shared by Marchy Lee and Sandy Stuvik who went on to set the session’s fourth quickest time. The Thai driver will now partner Pun for the rest of the weekend.
Porsche Center Okazaki’s Yuta Kamimura once again featured in the top-five, while ABSSA’s 720S – driven by Keita Sawa – finished sixth. Morning time toppers Yogibo Racing were a place further back and BMW Team Studie made it seven different manufacturers in the first eight positions.
In GT4, Motoharu Sato led the way for Koshido Racing whose Toyota finished 0.5s ahead of Free Practice pace setters Team Scala.
It’s an early start on Saturday with qualifying for both races getting underway at 08:35 JST before Race 1 goes green at 13:30. Both are live on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel, while Japanese fans can watch the race live on J Sports.