Hartog Helps Liu to Record-Equalling Mandalika Win

Anthony Liu scored a record-equalling GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS victory at Mandalika with the help of one-off Phantom Global Porsche co-driver Loek Hartog.

The occupants of the No. 37 Porsche 911 GT3 R ran out dominant victors in Sunday’s second race of the weekend, leading a one-two for the Weissach brand ahead of championship leaders Huang Ruohan and Alessandro Ghiretti for Absolute Racing.

It marked Liu’s seventh series victory, tying him for the most wins all time alongside Lu Wei, and his first win since the final round of the 2024 campaign.

Phantom Global-run cars swept the weekend as Cheng Congfu and Yu Kuai took victory in Saturday’s opener in their No. 16 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II.

Cheng took the start and passed the Absolute Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Akash Nandy to run third behind early leader Sean Gelael, making a one-off outing in a Garage 75 Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo, and Deng Yi’s Harmony Racing Ferrari.

An early safety car played into the hands of Cheng, who pitted to hand over to Yu at the first opportunity to get the jump on the Harmony car, while a ten-second pit stop penalty for solo drivers and new Silver entries cost Gelael several positions.

Deng’s co-driver Liu Kaishun found himself under pressure from the Team KRC BMW M4 GT3 EVO of series returnee Jesse Krohn in the battle for second, but the pair both dropped down the order after making contact and spinning at Turn 12.

That promoted Phantom’s second Audi shared by Jaxon Evans and ‘Andres Pato’ (Andrew Haryanto) to second, as Evans fended off home hero Gelael in the closing stages.

The No. 911 Absolute Porsche of Huang and Ghiretti was fourth, followed by the solo Craft-Bamboo Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Dean Chen and Liang Jiatong.

Liu ran fifth in the early stages of that race but any chances of a top result went away when he was shown a black-and-orange flag for loose front-left bodywork, a legacy of contact with Nandy’s Lamborghini while battling over fourth place.

However, he and Hartog made up for that misfortune in Sunday’s race as Hartog — standing in for Liu’s regular co-driver Dorian Boccolacci — took the start from pole and extended his advantage over Evans in the Phantom Global Audi in the opening stint.

With Evans serving a ten-second success penalty during the changeover to Pato, the way was clear for Liu to score a comfortable win by a margin of nearly 16 seconds.

A strong opening stint from Alessio Picariello in the No. 4 Origine Motorsport Porsche meant co-driver Lu emerged second after the stops with the two Absolute 911s of Vutthikorn Inthraphuvasak and Huang running close behind.

Huang was able to pass both Inthraphuvasak and Lu to grab second, while subsequent contact between Lu and Inthraphuvasak opened the door for Pato to claim third.

With Lu dropping to ninth due to a track limits penalty, Nandy emerged fourth in his Absolute Lamborghini ahead of Krohn and Ruan Cunfan’s KRC BMW.

Huang and Ghiretti head the overall championship by 20 points from Liu, while Cheng and Yu — only 11th on Sunday — sit third, 33 points behind the leaders.

The GTWC Asia season continues with its third round at Shanghai on June 5-6.

RESULTS: Race 1/Race 2