> Results: Practice 1 | Practice 2
Drivers’ championship leader Wei Lu enjoyed the ideal start to the Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia Powered by AWS season finale at Shanghai where co-driver Laurin Heinrich set fastest time across Friday’s two practice sessions.
Origine’s Porsche set the pace in Official Practice 2 after Mikael Grenier had topped the times in the first hour.
The five-minute turnaround between the two left little time for changes, but Heinrich still reduced the Triple Eight JMR Mercedes-AMG’s time by nine tenths to end with a 2m00.225s.
That was five seconds quicker than the last time Fanatec GT Asia raced at Shanghai in 2019, although some of that pace can be explained by the recent resurfacing and minor changes to the track’s layout.
Heinrich’s time was just 0.09s faster than Ralf Aron in the Climax Mercedes-AMG and another 0.05s clear of FAW’s Audi shared by another title contending crew: Franky Cheng and Adderly Fong.
Harmony’s #77 Ferrari, which was fastest at one stage, made it four manufacturers within two tenths of fastest time, while championship rivals Anthony Liu/Alessio Picariello (Absolute Racing) and Bob Yuan/Leo Ye Hongli (Origine) completed the top six. Their Porsches start the weekend 16 and 19 points, respectively, behind Lu.
Practice 2’s top 10 were all under Grenier’s time from the first session.
Elsewhere, Markus Winkelhock – who had a very slim but nevertheless mathematical chance to win the championship – has opted to withdrawn on medical grounds. Audi Sport Asia Team Absolute’s R8 is now therefore driven solo by Antares Au in the Am class.
Qualifying begins at 10:10 CST on Saturday before the first of the weekend’s races gets underway at 14:20. The second 60-minute contest follows on Sunday.