> Pro-Am winners Pato and Evans beat pole-sitter Gelael to second overall
> Chen and Liang take Silver-Am spoils; Wang and Liu victorious in Am
> Result: Mandalika Race 1
Cheng Congfu and Yu Kuai took advantage of a timely Safety Car period to clinch GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS overall, Silver class and China Cup victory in Race 1 at Mandalika.
The duo led home an FAW Audi Sport Asia Team Phantom 1-2 after Andrés Pato and Jaxon Evans came through from eighth on the grid to win Pro-Am, while pole-sitter Sean Gelael (Garage 75 Ferrari) had to settle for third.
Silver-Am victory went to Craft-Bamboo’s Dean Chen and Liang Jiatong who finished an excellent fifth overall behind championship leaders Huang Ruohan and Alessandro Ghiretti (Absolute Racing).
Further back, Origine’s Wang Zhongwei and Liu Hangcheng took the Am spoils to extend their class points lead.
PHANTOM’S RED LETTER DAY
Gelael’s pole position gave the large contingent of Indonesian fans hope of seeing a home winner. However, the additional 10 seconds of mandatory pitstop time for being a solo driver and new Silver entry severely restricted his chances without a fast, uninterrupted opening stint.
It began well when the Garage 75 Ferrari cut across fellow front row starter Deng Yi to maintain the lead. However, a Full Course Yellow and subsequent Safety Car period – required to recover the stricken GTO with KRC and Porsche Center Okazaki cars – put paid to any chance Gelael might have had.
Instead, the advantage swung to the Silver entries running second and third that crucially had no additional pitstop time to serve.
The Safety Car period resulted in a delayed pit window that opened just as half the field passed pit entry. Cheng, who was running third at this point after overtaking Akash Nandy early on, handed over to Yu at the first opportunity next time around whilst Harmony’s Ferrari instead ran much deeper before stopping. Deng’s co-driver Liu Kaishun re-joined just behind Yu, resulting in a net lead change after Gelael’s longer stop dropped him down the order.
Liu was also in danger of losing second to Jesse Krohn and Team KRC’s BMW whose tyres were already up to temperature. But disaster struck when the cars made contact and spun at Turn 12 after spending several corners side by side.
That incident played beautifully into the hands of Evans who spent his out-laps fending off Gelael. But after weathering the initial storm the Audi was able to edge clear and ultimately take the chequered flag 5.4s behind his team-mate Yu who enjoyed a comparatively quiet run to the finish.
Gelael completed the overall podium 3.3s further back after fending off the advancing Absolute Porsche shared by Huang and Ghiretti whose own progress was compromised by the five-second success penalty incurred for finishing third at Sepang.
Chen and Liang picked up five places en route to fifth overall in Craft-Bamboo’s Mercedes-AMG, which headed a line of three Silver-Am entries. The second of them, Climax Racing’s Elias Sepannen, passed Tsubasa Kondo on the final lap to complete the outright top six despite his co-driver Li Lichao stating 18th.
Meanwhile, the extra seven seconds of solo driver pitstop time dropped Akash Nandy from fourth to eighth in the final reckoning.
Mandalika’s second race starts at 11:30 local time (GMT +8). Watch it live on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel and app.
