Climax Mercedes-AMG on 12H Malaysia Pole

Climax Racing beat Absolute Racing to pole position for Creventic’s inaugural running of the Michelin 12H Malaysia at Sepang International Circuit.

Zhou Bihuang, Elias Seppanen and Tanart Sathienthirakul, who will be sharing the No. 999 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo with Li Lichao for Saturday’s 12-hour contest, put in a combined average time of 2:04.556.

This was enough to outpace the No. 10 Absolute Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Antares Au, Loek Hartog and Patric Niederhauser by a mere 0.017 seconds.

Although Hartog and Niederhauser were fastest overall in each of their individual segments, Bihuang’s advantage of 0.662 seconds over the No. 10 Porsche during the opening session was enough for the Mercedes-AMG squad to take pole.

Porsche contenders locked out the second row, with the No. 87 Origine Motorsport entry taking GT3-Am class pole in third overall ahead of the No. 26 Winhere Bquik Absolute Racing machine piloted by Henk Kiks, Alessandro Ghiretti, Deng Yi and Vincenzo Ricci.

Ajith RedAnt Racing rounded out the top five with the No. 93 Mercedes-AMG of Ajith Kumar, Ayrton Redant, Yannick Redant and Kobe de Breucker.

Viper Niza Racing, which led the opening session thanks to the efforts of Dominic Ang, was sixth, ahead of the No. 70 LM Corsa Ferrari 296 GT3 in the hands of Kei Nakanishi, Shigekazu Wakisaka and Dominik Schwager.

The No. 63 Leipert Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, headlined by 2022 Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson and his younger brother, newly crowned Lamborghini World Finals champion Hampus, was eighth overall and the last of the GT3 runners to set a time.

Two GT3 runners did not take part in qualifying: the No. 69 Continental Racing by Simpson Motorsport Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II sat out the session as the team opted to carry out a gearbox change, while Herberth Motorsport’s No. 91 Porsche was sidelined by electrical issues.

The Michelin 12H Malaysia will start Saturday at 10 a.m. local time (Friday 9 p.m. ET) and will uninterrupted for its full, 12-hour duration with live coverage on the Creventic Motorsports TV YouTube channel.

RESULTS: Qualifying