Heavy rain disrupted Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia Powered by AWS's first official session of the season at Chang International Circuit where Maximilian Goetz's early dry time was never threatened.
Drops of rain were falling from the angry-looking sky as the field headed out for what should have been an hour-long Official Practice session. It remained dry for the first 10 minutes before the light intermittent drops turned to a heavy downpour that made driving conditions impossible.
Drivers were still finding their feet at that point and hadn't set fully representative times when the red flags flew after 15 minutes. The postponement lasted another 45 before Race Control restarted the session just as it was due to end despite rain still falling.
Such is Chang's climate that the wet track began to dry almost as soon as the rain abated. However, it was never suitable for quick times, which left Goetz's Craft-Bamboo Mercedes-AMG out front on a 1m35.153s.
That was 1.8s slower than Thursday's testing best set by Fabian Schiller in Craft-Bamboo's other entry but 0.3s faster than another Alvaro Parente managed in HUBAUTO RACING's new Porsche. Audi Sport Asia Team Absolute's #11 R8 completed rain-effected top-three.
Friday's delay means Official Practice 2 now takes place an hour later than scheduled at 15:30 local time.