GT World Challenge Asia welcomed a record-setting field of 40 cars to Fuji Speedway this weekend for its second meeting of the 2023 season. Few could have expected the Bingo Sports Callaway Corvette C7 GT3-R to have emerged as the winner from such a field. But for the first time in an SRO competition anywhere around the world, the #9 C7 GT3-R has taken an overall win as team owner Shinji Takei and the legend Akira Iida won Race One at Fuji on Saturday.
The fan favourite C7 GT3-R has won races and championships elsewhere, most notably in ADAC GT Masters where the Callaway Competition team behind this car had such great success for many years. But this model, one of the last “boutique” GT3s and in the final year of its homologation, has seldom competed in any SRO-sanctioned series, let alone tasted success there. That all changed at Fuji where Bingo, Takei and Iida claimed a well-earned victory against world-class opposition.
Takei was the fastest Bronze-graded driver in Qualifying earlier that day, but was elevated to the front row after the #87 R&B Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R, which should have started on the pole courtesy of Leo Ye Hongli, had its five-place grid penalty applied from Buriram. Phantom Pro Racing’s #29 Audi R8 LMS GT3 inherited pole position, and the provocatively-styled #9 Corvette moved up to second.
But while new pole man Ling Kang retained his lead through the first corner, Takei dropped back behind the fast-starting #37 Craft Bamboo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Anthony Liu. Ye got a benefit before the green flag when the #19 The Spirit of FFF Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 (Mineki Okura/Hiroshi Hamaguchi) failed to start the race due to a clutch issue, which effectively moved him to fifth on the grid. Ye then picked up another two places, passed Takei, and was soon shadowing Liu for second place.
Soon after, Jinlong Bao spun his #992 Absolute Racing Porsche at Dunlop Corner, and was then hit by Yuko Suzuki in the #17 CREF Motor Sport McLaren 720S GT3. The Safety Car was deployed for debris – and racing resumed with 48 minutes remaining.
On the restart, Ye tried to get past Liu for second and chase down the bright teal Audi of race leader Kang. Liu was able to stay ahead with the benefit of the slipstream, but once Ye finally saw an opening, he swept past Liu around the outside of Coca-Cola Corner to take second position, just before the compulsory pit window opened for driver changes.
When pit lane opened, the majority of the Pro-Am teams stopped at the first opportunity to install their faster drivers. Phantom Pro and R&B elected to keep Ling and Ye out, and their chances of retaining the lead began to fade when fresh rubber fitted to cars further down the order allowed the undercut to take effect. This, along with Craft-Bamboo’s maximum 15-second Success Penalty (earned from their Race 2 win in Buriram last time out) moved the #9 Bingo Corvette into the lead after the driver changes.
Iida entered the race with a reasonable advantage to begin with but might have faced a tough challenge from Tomonobu Fujii in the #47 D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3. The Aston Martin ran sixth throughout the opening stint in Satoshi Hoshino’s hands but came alive after the stops when Fujii passed several cars.
But while Fujii was fending off Dennis Olsen in the #4 R&B Racing Porsche, the #47 D’station Aston Martin was given a one-second stop-and-go penalty for exceeding the minimum pit stop time by a pithy 0.019 seconds. That allowed Iida, the 53-year-old, 2002 SUPER GT GT500 Champion who’d been inactive from competitive motorsport for almost five years, to stretch his lead over some of the best GT3 drivers from around the world – all in the prime of their careers.
Olsen may have had the pace to put the Corvette under pressure but was prevented from doing so by Dennis Lind in the #2 Climax Racing Mercedes, Alessio Picariello in the #911 AAS Motorsport by Absolute Racing Porsche, Yuta Kamimura in Porsche Centre Okazaki’s #16, and Intercontinental GT Challenge Champion Daniel Juncadella – who was making up ground following Craft-Bamboo’s Success Penalty.
But Picariello was the fastest of the lot, and his progress meant the battle for second prevented any of those potential contenders from challenging Iida – who took the chequered flag after one hour and 33 laps of racing, to take what will likely be one of the most popular wins ever in GT World Challenge Asia competition.
Picariello and Vutthikhorn Inthraphuvasak finished second for AAS Motorsport by Absolute Racing, while Olsen and Wei Lu finished third for R&B Racing to put two Porsches on the remaining podium places.
Lind and Bihuang Zhou finished fourth, while a late drive-through penalty given to Kamimura for causing a collision promoted Juncadella and Liu’s #37 Mercedes to fifth place.
The #333 Phantom Pro Racing Audi (An Xie/Mikkel Mac) finished sixth after a late surge from Mac. Behind them, the #888 Triple Eight JMR Mercedes (Jefri Ibrahim/Richie Stanaway) finished seventh, the #25 NK Racing Porsche (Kiyoshi Uchiyama/Tsubasa Kondo) was eighth, the #11 Audi Sport Team Asia Absolute R8 (Andrew Haryanto/James Yu) was ninth, and the #555 Maezawa Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 (Piti Bhirombhakdi/Naoki Yokomizo) completed the top ten.
The new #1 CarGuy Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 (Takeshi Kimura/Kei Cozzolino) finished 12th in its debut race. In 15th overall, the #3 Climax Racing Mercedes (Bian Ye/Hu Yuqi) won the GT3 Am class. As for the #87 R&B Racing Porsche of Ye and Bo Yuan, it retired less than 20 minutes shy of the chequered flag with a broken suspension.
BMW Team Studie picked up in GT World Challenge Asia where it left off before the COVID-enforced hiatus of the series in the GT4 ranks. Masaki Kano and Japanese motorsport legend Manabu Orido claimed top honours in GT4 aboard the #50 YZ Racing with BMW Team Studie M4 GT4, 35 seconds ahead of Akiland Racing’s #71 Toyota GR Supra GT4 shared by Masayoshi Oyama and Ryohei Sakaguchi.
Images © SRO Motorsports Group
