> Result: FP3
Craft-Bamboo Racing’s Marvin Dienst mastered the conditions in a very wet third practice session at Shanghai this morning to pip Martin Rump and Sandy Stuvik by a combined 0.076s. Meanwhile, in GT4, EKS Motorsports’ Eric Lo set fastest time by two tenths of a second.
Rain fell before and during the 30-minute session, which resulted in lap times some 15 seconds slower than yesterday’s dry running. Nevertheless, with rain also a possibility for today’s qualifying and race, third practice could offer a potential form guide should conditions again be compromised.
Dienst, making his championship debut this weekend, set a best lap of 2m20.308s aboard the #99 Porsche to edge out Rump by just 0.017s. The KCMG by Champion Racing driver is yet to finish outside of the top-two in any of this weekend’s sessions and maintained that run by beating Stuvik’s VSR-entered Lamborghini, albeit by just only 0.059s.
Franky Cheng’s Milestone Racing Audi was 0.4s down on Dienst’s time in fourth but finished ahead of fellow R8 LMS GT3 runners Alessio Picariello and Alex Yoong. HubAuto Racing’s #277 Porsche, the OD Racing-entered Audi and Porsche of Arrows Racing completed a top-nine covered by just 0.8s.
Top Am Cup pairing Lin Yue and Zhu Junhan were impressive in the tricky conditions en route to 10th overall aboard their FFF Racing Team by ACM Lamborghini, while Eric Lo made it back-to-back fastest times for EKS Motorsports who also topped FP2 yesterday afternoon. Its Porsche finished 0.182s clear of HubAuto Racing’s similar Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport MR.
Qualifying gets underway at 12:35 local time. Watch it live on Blancpain GT Series Asia’s website and Facebook page, as well as SRO’s GT World Youtube channel.