Lotus Wins in Greater Bay GT4 Race
A sunny Sunday morning at Macau saw the Greater Bay Area GT Cup for GT4 contenders, second position on the grid taken by Darryl O’ Young in his Craft Bamboo-entered Mercedes AMG GT4 as the Hong Kong-based driver looked to add a final page in a long GT race history in his final event as a driver.
At the start, pole sitter Han Lichao and O’Young had contact into Mandarin Bend with Wenlong (Daniel) Lu taking full advantage to grab the lead.
Both of the front-runners continued, but after a later restar,t O’Young crashed out from second place, leaving the win to the #20 Lotus Emira GT4 of Wenlong Lu, (the marque’s second win in this event).
Second place on the day came to the pole sitter, and the inaugural SRO GT Cup Champion, Toyota Gazoo Racing China’s Lichee Han in the #33 Toyota Supra GT4 Evo.
Kai-Shun Liu made it a Team Pegasus Racing Lotus 1-3.
GT World Cup Pre-Race
Alessio Picariello has some confidence that the Porsches can challenge: “We have pace, so it’s good. I feel good in the car. I feel confident. The car is very good up the mountain, but then on the straight, we lack a bit of speed, so to overtake is very tough, and also to defend, depending on which car you have behind.
“At the beginning of the qualifying race, I was held up pretty badly by Yifei in the mountain, so it allowed the BMW to stay close, which was difficult for me, up to Lisboa in order to defend. Lello was really fast in Mandarin also, so I was quite a bit under pressure, but then luckily, Yifei found some pace, and it allowed me also to open the gap to Marciello.
“I still think I was quicker than Yifei, but to overtake was not really possible, so at least I could pull a gap and feel a bit safer.
“We know the star will be key. Lello starts one position closer, so I think it will be really difficult to fend him off. But I think also for the Ferrari, it will be complicated to keep him behind at the beginning.
“But over those things, it looks like we are quicker. We have a set of new tyres for the race – I know others used a set from qualifying or practice.
“As for the Ferraris, I feel like Yifei was quite a lot on the limit. Fuoco was really under control. So I would say Yifei has to push much more in order to keep the pace, while Antonio seems much more under control. So, Antonio will be hard to beat, Yifei also, but in terms of pure pace, I feel like Antonio has an advantage at the moment.”
The incident at Lisboa that saw several cars in trouble saw significant contact with Benji Goethe’s McLaren from the Uno Racing Audi of Adderly Fong, the Chinese driver coming to the Optimum garage post race to apologise for his error. Both cars, though, are good to go for the race today. He was dealt a 10-second penalty in the race as a result, as indeed was Goeth,e who had also made contact, this time with the #45 Audi of Christopher Haase.
GT3 Race Pics Copyright FIA
