Porsche’s Guven Leads First Suzuka 1000km Test Session

Absolute Racing topped the opening test session for this weekend’s Suzuka 1000km round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge with DTM champion Ayhancan Guven setting the pace aboard the No. 7 Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo.

Amid persistent light rain, Guven set the fastest lap of 2:11.077 during the one-hour session on Friday morning aboard the Bosch-liveried machine.

That time proved good enough to top the session by 0.397 seconds from the No. 77 Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Maxime Martin.

Max Hesse made it three brands in the top three aboard the No. 89 Team KRC BMW M4 GT3 EVO, 0.517 seconds behind Guven, making it the best Bronze class runner.

Next up was the newly-built Miedecke Motorsport/Team MPC Ford Mustang GT3 Evo, which was turning a wheel for the first time on Friday morning but nonetheless ended up with an impressive time of 2:11.703 in the hands of Dennis Olsen.

Kevin Tse led the Pro-Am class with the fifth-best time overall in the No. 28 Craft-Bamboo Mercedes-AMG, ahead of Joel Sturm’s High Class Racing Porsche.

Best of the Japanese squads was the K-tunes Racing Lexus RC F GT3 of SUPER GT regular Sena Sakaguchi in seventh, ahead of Bingo Racing’s Porsche in which another of Toyota’s GT500 regulars, Ukyo Sasahara, set the best time.

A pair of Ferrari 296 GT3 Evos completed the top ten, last-minute Maezawa Racing replacement Alessio Rovera leading Tadasuke Makino’s PONOS Racing car.

While one Absolute Racing car set the fastest time in the session, the No. 8 ‘Bushi Rex’-themed machine entered in association with AO Racing curiously propped up the timesheets in 30th with a best effort of 2:23.578 for Alessio Picariello.

The car did not appear to be suffering from any problems, completing 18 laps, and set competitive sector times at certain points.

A generally smooth one hour of running was interrupted by an early full-course yellow which came as a result of the Herberth Motorsport-run Ziggo Sport Tempesta Racing Porsche stopping on-track with reported engine issues.

The second test session for the Suzuka 1000km follows at 12:10 local time (Saturday 11:10 p.m. EST).