Weekly Racing Roundup (7.2.18)

Photo: SRO

Absolute, FFF Claim Blancpain GT Series Asia Wins at Suzuka

Absolute Racing and FFF Racing Team scored a race win each in the Blancpain GT Series Asia rounds at Suzuka on Saturday and Sunday.

Absolute’s Martin Rump and Franky Cheng picked up their first win of the season in Race 1 before Dennis Lind and Martin Kodric later took their maiden victory for FFF on Sunday.

The win helped Lind and Kodric extend their championship lead to 19 points over Patric Niederhauser.

Lind led the first race until he had to serve a ten-second success penalty in the pits, moving Cheng’s Absolute Audi R8 LMS GT3 into the lead after the driver changes while Sandy Stuvik was a close second in his Craft-Bamboo Racing Porsche 911 RSR, ultimately finishing 0.8 seconds down.

A bizarre incident in Race 2 moved Lind into the lead with his FFF-run Lamborghini Huracan GT3 after leader Ye Hongli followed the safety car into the pits after a safety car period.

KCMG finished second with its new 2018-spec Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 driven by Edoardo Liberati and Florian Strauss who fought through from 15th on the grid to take their second podium in three races.

BMW Team Studie took the GT4 class win on Saturday with its BMW M4 GT4 piloted by Takayuki Kinoshita and Sunako Jukuchou while GruppeM’s Reinhold Renger and Ryuichirou Ohtsuka won in Race 2.

RESULTS: Race 1; Race 2

News & Notes

***Ecurie Ecosse/Nielsen’s Tony Wells and Colin Noble won both of the LMP3 Cup races at Snetterton, increasing their championship lead with two weekends remaining in the series.

***Caca Bueno and Ricardo Baptista will race a second Drivex-entered Mercedes-AMG GT3 in the remainder of the International GT Open season alongside full-season drivers Marcelo Hahn and Allan Khodair in the other car.

***Andrea Bertolini will co-drive with Daniele Di Amato in this weekend’s GT Open round at the Hungaroring. It will be the 44-year-old’s debut appearance in the series despite having extensive GT3 and GTE experience in recent years.

***The grid for the next GT4 European Series round at Spa on July 21-22 is expected to reach 50 cars with a number of guest entries. Several teams and drivers will pull double duty between the European series and British GT Championship which share the weekend.

***Ram Racing will make its first British GT appearance since 2015 with a Mercedes driven by Tom Onslow-Cole and Remon Vos at Spa while Team ABBA Racing will return for its second race of the season with its Mercedes driven by Adam Christodoulou and Richard Neary.

***Next Monday’s edition of the Weekly Racing Roundup will include reports from the GT Open, VLN and 24H Series events.

Jake Kilshaw

Jake Kilshaw is a UK-based journalist. He is a graduate of Politics and International Relations.