> Audi Sport Asia Team Absolute and Climax start up front
> Results: Qualifying 1 | Qualifying 2
Akash Nandy led an Audi one-two and Jules Gounon grabbed Race 2 pole in Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia Powered by AWS qualifying at Suzuka this morning.
Absolute pipped fellow Audi Sport Asia squad FAW to top spot in Q1 after Nandy outgunned Franky Cheng by two tenths. Gounon then required just one lap to seal pole for Climax and Mercedes-AMG but might have gone faster still had his second attempt not been compromised by another car at the final chicane.
The French-Andorran’s 2m00.387s was still comfortably quickest of the weekend so far and 0.221s faster than Laurin Heinrich’s Origine Porsche, which shares Race 2’s front row tomorrow. Finn Gehrsitz was impressive en route to Silver-Am pole and third overall in Absolute Corse’s Ferrari, while Mercedes-AMG drivers Fabian Schiller (Craft-Bamboo), Daniel Morad (Craft-Bamboo) and Mikael Grenier (Triple Eight JMR) completed a top six covered by 0.365s.
Q2 ended with just under three minutes remaining when LMcorsa’s Ferrari hit the barriers on the run from the hairpin to Spoon. Shigekazu Wakisaka was unhurt, but the team now faces a race against time to repair the Ferrari in time for this afternoon.
The early finish left Silver-Ams Maxime Oosten (KRC) and Yu Kanimaru (5ZIGEN) eighth and ninth overall, while James Yu (Audi Sport Asia/Absolute) bagged Silver class pole in 16th overall. Garage 75’s David Tjiptobiantoro starts up front in Am.
The first session was, predictably, topped by a Silver-graded driver. Tanart Sathienthirakul was fastest after the first round of flying laps before Nandy moved from third to first on the second.
Cheng also improved but couldn’t beat the Malaysian who was also 0.241s quicker than leading Am Bob Yuan in the Origine Porsche that pipped Hirobon’s 5ZIGEN Nissan to third.
Chinese title rivals Lu Wei and Anthony Liu share row three in their 911s, while the Climax Mercedes-AMG that sealed Race 2 pole starts seventh this afternoon courtesy of Zhou Bihuang. AMAC’s Porsche grabbed Am class pole in the hands of Ben Porter who qualified eighth overall.
The first of this weekend’s two Fanatec GT Asia races goes green at 12:25 JST. Watch it live on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel.