> Harmony Ferrari beats JMR Corvette by more than a tenth
> Result: Official Practice | Bronze Test
Ye Yifei set fastest time in his first-ever official GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS session by topping Okayama’s Official Practice.
The Ferrari factory driver became China’s first outright Le Mans 24 Hours winner earlier this year and is now returning to a team and car – Harmony Racing’s 296 GT3 – with which he contested the FIA GT Cup at Macau towards the end of 2024.
Although a little slower than the fastest time from Thursday’s test session, Ye’s 1m29.499s – set halfway through the hour-long session – was ultimately 0.157s faster than JMR’s #99 Corvette driven by Ben Green.
The Brit had previously spent 15 minutes out front after usurping team-mate, compatriot and early pace-setter Alexander Sims. Ye then registered the first of his fastest times to take provisional top spot by 0.017s before extending the advantage two laps later.
Dorian Boccolacci moved Phantom’s Porsche up to third at Sims’ expense, while another of this year’s title contenders and Silver-Am points’ leader Maxime Oosten (Team KRC BMW) finished a shade further back. Less than three tenths covered the top five.
911s filled positions six through nine thanks to Origine, GTO and Phantom, while Silver championship leaders Yu Kuai and Cheng Congfu rounded out the top 10.
In all, the first 20 cars were separated by just one second.
LM Corsa’s Ferrari was fastest of the Am class entries. However, its time was then beaten in the subsequent Bronze Test by Hirobon who lapped 5ZIGEN’s Nissan in 1m30.413s just before red flags brought the session to an early close.
They were triggered by Zhefang Xu’s Absolute Porsche, which proved tricky to budge from the gravel trap.