Absolute to Make Series Return with Two Cars

GT World Challenge Asia teams’ champion Absolute Racing has announced plans to contest the next Asian Le Mans Series season with two cars in the GT category.

The team, which has bases in China, Malaysia and Thailand, has yet to confirm which cars it will be running while driver lineups also remain under wraps for now.

Absolute won last year’s GTWC Asia teams’ championship and ran a large contingent of Porsche 911 GT3 Rs and Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evos, while its drivers Philip Hamprecht and Tanart Sathienthirakul finished third in the overall classification.

The team has previous experience in the Asian Le Mans Series, finishing second in the 2015-16 GT class with an Audi driven by Jeffrey Lee and several different co-drivers.

Absolute has also fielded one-off Bentley Continental GT3 entries in the series, but its 2021 season campaign will mark its first time running the full season with two cars.

The upcoming Asian LMS season is being held entirely at Yas Marina Circuit in the United Arab Emirates, across two sets of events in February.

“We’ve always liked endurance, and everyone has such fond memories of our previous participation in the Asian Le Mans Series,” said team director Ingo Matter.

“In the world we live in today we are convinced that the 2021 Asian Le Mans Series season presents the right format for an Asia-based team with a global outlook like ours.

“We have been in negotiations with drivers, sponsors and partners, and we are expecting to have two GT cars on the grid at Yas Marina Circuit.”

Asian LMS managing director Cyrille Taesch Wahlen added: “We are very excited to welcome back Absolute Racing to the Asian Le Mans Series.

“The team has been hugely successful in Asia and they will be a welcome addition to what is shaping up to be a competitive GT Class.”