The good news this morning is that the #992 Tempo by Absolute Racing Porsche of Laurens Vanthoor was in scrutineering first thing this morning and is set to be back on track today after its late session FP1 disagreement with the army on the exit of T2.
The team had the engine back in the car yesterday evening after replacing the rear subframes and checking the chassis.
“We were lucky at the angle that the car hit at the back,” Porsche Motorsport Asia Pacific boss Alex Gibot told DSC on Thursday evening. ” The car took the hit well, and whilst there was damage, it was a relatively straightforward job, undertaken very well and very quickly by the team.”
Torque Talk
The big change this year in the FIA GT World Cup is the introduction of performance monitoring torque sensors to the GT3 runners, and it’s worth adding immediately that these are GT3 cars with torque sensors and not LMGT3 spec cars.
Despite the cost considerations that have been cited by several paddock insiders as compressing the entry this year, down to 16 cars, 16 cars of high quality maybe, but 16 nonetheless.
The costs were cited in Mercedes AMG’s decision not to enter cars this year, though they planto return as soon as possible.
“The issue is that we use customer cars in the region for this race meeting,” Mercedes AMG Customer Racing’s Stefan Wendl told DSC. “Their business model sees the cars and kit effectively live in containers for the whole season, so adding this level of complexity for a one-off race is a burden that most had not anticipated.”
The costs to those who have entered vary wildly, the lowest cited to DSC was “upwards of 60k Euro”, to others that cite “well over 100k Euro” (per car).
McLaren Return
The solo Optimum McLaren for Benji Goethe marks the return of the British marque to the big race in Macau for the first time in a decade, and the debut here of the 720S in any form.
The last McLaren efforts came in 2015, the first iteration of the race as the FIA GT World Cup, with four examples of the 720’s predecessor, the 650S GT3 entered, three for FFF Racing and a single car for Clearwater Racing.
The 2025 entry is something of a sighting mission for Benji Goethe, the young German keen to shine in the future here but taking a steady approach on his debut, coached by Stuart Hall and with assistance too from his F2 racing brother, who has prior single-seater experience around the Macau street circuit.
“I don’t think anyone really comes here in their first year and wins already. So it’s definitely about wanting to come back here in the years to come and using this year to learn as much as I can, keep out the wall so I can do as many laps as I can.
“I definitely do want to come back, and I think McLaren is quite motivated to come back also.
“It’s probably the craziest track I’ve ever been on. Really enjoying it so far. Just improving lap by lap, building a bit of confidence.
“I’m happy with the progress so far, happy with the track and the car. I just need to build a bit more confidence through some of these corners.”
This is a big, powerful car in a circuit that almost doesn’t look as if it’s big enough than for it in parts?
“Some of those sections definitely get a bit narrow. Definitely the narrowest track I’ve been on, especially through that middle sector. But yeah, we can just about fit through!
“I’ve looked at a lot of a lot of GT3 on board coming into this week, and obviously McLaren haven’t been here in around 10 years so there’s obviously no on board of this exact car on this track. So it was a bit tough coming into here, but we’re getting around all right for now.
Paddock People
More ‘spotted in the paddock’; this afternoon including Emanuele Pirro, Chairman of FIA single seater commission and ex head of Audi Sport Customer Racing Romolo Liebchen, “just popping in as I am travelling in the area”.
Photo: FIA – Marius Hecker
