The Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II may be a car that’s classified as “extinct in the wild” with only a few surviving examples, yet it is still plenty capable of dominating a GT World Challenge race weekend just as it would have ten years ago. That was the case this weekend in Okayama International Circuit, as Audi Sport Asia Team Phantom’s two R8s swept this weekend’s races.
Following Cheng Congfu and James Yu Kuai’s win in Race 1 Saturday, this time it was Andrés Pato and Jaxon Evans that took the win from pole in Race 2 on Sunday morning – with Pato, otherwise known to the world as Andrew Haryanto, holding off championship leader Lu Wei’s #11 Origine Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R in a dramatic photo finish.
The action in Sunday’s feature race kicked off just a few corners into the race. As the field went through the Moss Esses, the #500 Team 5Zigen Nissan of Atsushi Miyake got squeeze between the #37 Phantom Global Racing Porsche (Ayhancan Güven) and #89 Team KRC BMW (Neil Verhagen), damaging the front of the GT-R.
That appeared to set off a chain reaction behind them as the ensuing crash swept up three of Absolute Racing’s four cars: The #911 Porsche of Alessandro Ghiretti and the #29 Lamborghini of Akash Nandy, which both came to the pits and retired after assessing damage – and to add further pain, the #20 HZO Fortis Racing by Absolute Porsche would retire later in the race to cap off a miserable Sunday for the organisation.
The #918 Porsche of Klaus Bachler was also involved in the first-lap skirmish, along with the #77 Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes-AMG (Liang Jiatong).
A lap later, the #96 Harmony Racing Ferrari of Liu Kaishun tapped and spun the #89 KRC BMW of Verhagen at the First Corner, and only then was the Full Course Yellow deployed to retrieve debris and get the race back in order.
Evans, the starting driver in the #15 Phantom Audi, kept his nerve through it all, building up a 2.5-second gap over the field by the time he brought the car in for its required pit stop. Behind him, Laurin Heinrich in the #11 Origine Porsche drove past the #10 GTO with KRC BMW of Maxime Oosten to take second place.
The Audi of Pato left the pits with the lead ahead of the Porsche of Lu, but Lu, who took the Overall Championship lead yesterday, caught his Indonesian counterpart and put the pressure on in the final laps – and to add more drama, rain started to come down, not enough to flood the circuit but enough to add more tension.
On the last lap, Lu made his move for the lead at Redman Corner, trying to find his way through only for Pato to shut the door at Hobbs Corner, Mike Knight Corner, and then out of the final corner. The two were wheel-to-wheel across the line, but the Audi won it by three-quarters of a car length – or 0.089 seconds.
The #10 GTO with KRC BMW of Oosten and Brian Lee, which finished sixth yesterday (was fourth, before a two-place demotion for causing a collision) finished third and swept both races in the Silver-Am class. Lee took the chequered flag three-quarters of a second ahead of the #37 Phantom Global Racing Porsche of Güven and Anthony Liu Xu in fourth.
Fifth place overall and top honours in the Silver class went to the #96 Harmony Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 of Chen Weian and Liu Kaishun, followed by the #81 Climax Racing Mercedes-AMG (Li Lichao/Elias Seppänen) in sixth, and the #72 Apex Predator Harmony Racing Ferrari (Jiajun Song/Brendon Leitch) in seventh. The #72 Ferrari’s run marked a great bounce back from “JJ” Song’s crash in Race 1.
Race 1 overall winners Cheng and Yu finished eighth today in the #16 FAW Phantom Audi, hampered the most by their Success Pit Penalty, Cheng had to fight to claw his way back into the top ten.
That top ten was rounded out by two Japanese challengers, the #60 LM corsa Ferrari (Shigekazu Wakisaka/Ryo Ogawa) and the #18 Porsche Center Okazaki 911 (Hiroaki Nagai/Kazuto Kotaka). The #5 BMW M Team Studie M4 (Tomohide Yamaguchi/Seiji Ara) dropped to 11th after Yamaguchi spun out with five minutes to go.
Origine Motorsport’s #22 Porsche of Liu Hangcheng and Wang Zhongwei finished 12th overall and took the win in the Am class.
Further down the order, the #89 KRC BMW of Verhagen and Ruan Cunfan finished 15th, and Absolute Racing’s sole finisher was the #918 Porsche of Bachler and Kazuki Ota in 19th.
With today’s results, Origine’s Lu Wei has now stretched his overall championship lead to 22 points over Ghiretti and Huang Ruohan, who suffered their first DNF of the year. Phantom Global Racing’s Liu is now third in points, while Race 1 winners Cheng and Yu slide to fourth.
GT World Challenge Asia returns on 3–4 October for the second edition of the Beijing Street Race in China’s capital city. Select teams will be in action in just two weeks, though, as they make their preparations for the 50th running of the Suzuka 1000km on Sunday, 13 September.
Images © SRO Motorsports Group
