> Ye and Liberati triumph in exciting wet/dry encounter
> Origine and Yuan/Ye crowned teams’ and Silver-Am champions
> FAW Audi Sport Asia, Vollgas and Climax claim class victories
> Race 2 Result
VSR, Bian Ye and Edoardo Liberati have scored Lamborghini’s first overall Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia Powered by AWS victory since 2018 in the second of this weekend’s races at Okayama.
The duo started fourth but led by Turn 1 just as rain began to fall. Liberati then judged his switch to wet tyres to perfection before Ye gapped Prince Abu Bakar Ibrahim over the second half of the race. The Huracan took the chequered flag six seconds clear of the Triple Eight JMR Mercedes-AMG that also featured Luca Stolz, while Dorian Boccolacci’s standout opening stint helped the Phantom Global Porsche he shares with Chris Chia to complete the podium.
Lu Wei – partnered this weekend by Bastian Buus – finished right behind to extend his championship lead to 16 points. 50 are still available for winning both races at Shanghai next month.
Fourth and 10th overall helped Origine Motorsport clinch the teams’ championship before its home event, while its #87 crew of Bob Yuan and Leo Ye Hongli – who now occupy second overall – also wrapped up the Silver-Am drivers’ title. However, they were beaten to class victory by first-time winners Han MinGwan and Kim JaeHyun in Vollgas Motorsport’s Porsche.
FAW Audi Sport Asia’s Franky Cheng and Adderly Fong head to Shanghai with one hand on the Silver crown after scoring their second win of the weekend. And there was also Am success for Climax Racing’s #66 Mercedes-AMG shared by Zhou Bihuang and Hu Yuqi.
VSR WEATHERS THE STORM
Conditions undoubtedly played their part across the hour, but VSR’s victory chances were set up by Liberati scything through the middle of a six-wide spread before the field reached Turn 1.
His opening moments were in stark contrast to those of JP de Oliveira whose front row starting Mercedes-AMG was tapped around and into the gravel trap just as rain began to fall. Fabian Schiller and Alessio Picariello also fell victim to the deteriorating but localised conditions over the next two laps before the drizzle spread and became heavier.
That was the cue for teams to stop and fit wet weather tyres well before the pit window. They chose to do so in a staggered fashion, but all cars other than GTO’s Porsche were running the optimum rubber just after one-quarter distance.
Liberati and Stolz were neither first nor last to pit, but it was they who occupied first and second once the race settled down. Boccolacci meanwhile, who found grip where others could not, was particularly impressive on both slicks and wets, but a slow first stop meant he resumed in sixth. Further eye-catching passes on Ralf Aron, Markus Winkelhock and then Buus vaulted him back up to third when the pros made way for their Am co-drivers after 30 minutes.
Ye emerged just ahead of Ibrahim who initially tracked the Lamborghini. But the Chinese driver was never seriously threatened before easing clear to take a comfortable win.
Chia also finished where he re-joined in third after Boccolacci’s cameo before holding off Lu who closed down Phantom’s Porsche to finish just 0.2s behind. Cheng rounded out the top five after Fong spent the opening stint in sixth – a position ultimately claimed by Phantom’s AAS-bannered 911 shared by Vutthikorn Inthraphuvasak and Joel Eriksson.
The #22 Climax Mercedes-AMG and #40 Audi Sport Asia Team Absolute entry – which lost a little time in the pits thanks to its five-second Success Penalty – completed the top eight.
Behind, the championship’s only Korean squad, Vollgas, scored its best overall result thus far and collected a first Silver-Am win after holding off new class champions Yuan and Ye as well as Porsche Center Okazaki’s Kiyoshi Uchiyama and Tsubasa Kondo who finished line astern in ninth, 10th and 11th.
Further back, Climax Mercedes-AMGs claimed an Am class one-two courtesy of Zhou, Hu, Liu Hangcheng and Li Lichao. 10.5s separated the two all-Chinese entries, while David Tjiptobiantoro and Christian Colombo completed the podium a similar distance back in Garage 75’s Ferrari. Tjiptobiantoro now enjoys a healthy but not insurmountable advantage at the top of the standings from AMAC’s Porsche, which could only finish fifth.
The championship now turns its attention to China, a country it hasn’t visited since 2019. Shanghai hosts the Fanatec GT Asia season finale and title decider on September 13-15.
