Results: Official Practice | Bronze Test
Climax Racing duo Li Lichao and Elias Seppanen hit the ground running at Sepang this morning by topping both Official Practice and the Bronze Test.
Their Mercedes-AMG wound up 0.4s faster than anyone else in the opening session before Lichao beat Anthony Liu by half a tenth.
Teams spent Thursday’s four test sessions blowing away the cobwebs after a long winter. And that approach continued to some degree this morning when only Bastian Buus and then Seppanen really pushed the envelope.
Both set their fastest times early in the session. Absolute’s Porsche was the first to record a meaningful time before a 2m04.144s left Seppanen untouchable out front.
They were followed in quick succession by a Lamborghini, BMW and Audi. Akash Nandy, who drives Absolute’s Huracan solo on home soil, lapped half a tenth shy of Buus to complete a top three populated by Silver-Am, Pro-Am and Silver entries, while Neil Verhagen (Team KRC) and Jaxon Evans (Audi Sport Asia Team Phantom) completed a top five separated by 0.7s.
Climax’s other Mercedes-AMG was also fastest, albeit in the Am class, courtesy of Setiawan Santoso and Mike Zhou. Their best of 2m05.919s was also a fraction faster than Li’s subsequent Bronze Test best.
Friday’s practice sessions continue with Pre-Qualifying at 15:40 local time.