> New look Origine Porsche beats Absolute’s Audi to top spot
> Pre-Qualifying Result
Origine’s re-liveried (and numbered) Porsche ended Friday fastest of all at Fuji thanks to Laurin Heinrich’s time in Pre-Qualifying.
The German’s 1m39.041s eclipsed Tom Sargent’s Official Practice best by two tenths and Thierry Vermeulen’s PQ lap by a similar margin to serve notice of his and Lu Wei’s intent at a circuit where Origine has won twice in as many years.
Lu has traded his familiar #4 and longstanding purple livery for #11 and a black/silver/red variant this weekend in the hope that wholesale changes will also impact results. Last year’s championship runner-up is only fifth in the standings after scoring just four points at Mandalika.
Factory ace Heinrich hinted at what could be to come by setting fastest time of the week so far ahead of Saturday morning’s qualifying session.
Absolute’s #98 crew has also made major changes for Fuji where its erstwhile Ferrari has become an Audi. Vermeulen looked immediately at home in Thursday testing and further underlined the team’s hopes by beating Max Hesse and Team KRC’s BMW to second place by 0.039s.
Top Silver-Am runner Sargent finished three tenths shy of his Official Practice benchmark in fourth overall, Akash Nandy (Lamborghini) took the Silver spoils a place further back, and championship leader Alessandro Ghiretti completed the top six. Four of those cars split across three manufacturers are run by Absolute.
Climax Racing’s Mercedes-AMG made it five manufacturers inside the top seven.
Qualifying begins at 08:30 JST (GMT +9) ahead of Race 1 at 12:35. Both are live on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel.