Ferrari Ace Ye Joins Harmony Racing for Okayama

Ferrari factory driver Yifei Ye will contest this weekend’s Okayama round of the GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS with the Harmony Racing team.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans winner will share Harmony’s No. 55 Ferrari 296 GT3 with Bronze-rated newcomer Song Jiajun for his series debut at the Japanese circuit.

Although it marks Ye’s first outing in GTWC Asia, he has raced the 296 GT3 in last year’s Monza round of the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup and then again in the FIA GT World Cup in Macau, also for Harmony.

Ye and Song replace Harmony’s regular No. 55 duo Liu Hangcheng and Elias Seppanen, with Lorenzo Patrese having also driven for the team earlier in the year.

The lineup change in the No. 55 Ferrari is one of only two updates on the latest version of the entry list for this weekend’s Okayama round, with the other being the withdrawal of the No. 2 Climax Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo due to chassis damage.

It reduces the entry for the penultimate event of the season to 30 cars.

Origine Motorsport Porsche pair Leo Ye Hongli and Bo Yuan go into the Okayama round with a seven-point advantage over JMR Corvette racer Prince Jefri Ibrahim.

As revealed on the initial entry list earlier this month, Prince Jefri will continue to share his No. 99 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R with Ben Green, as Alexander Sims moves over to the sister No. 66 car alongside Prince Abu Bakar Ibrahim for his return.

Paid practice at Okayama begins on Thursday, with official practice and pre-qualifying taking place on Friday.

Qualifying proper is slated for Saturday morning ahead of the first one-hour race at 1 p.m. local time (12 a.m. EDT), while the second race of the weekend is due to begin on Sunday at 10 a.m. (Saturday 9 p.m. EDT).