Origine Porsche Regains Points Lead With Fuji Victory

Origine Motorsport Porsche drivers Leo Ye Hongli and Yuan Bo retook the lead of the GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS standings with a victory and a second place in last weekend’s fourth round of the season at Fuji Speedway.

Sharing the No. 87 Porsche 911 GT3 R, Ye and Yuan were victorious for the third time this year in Saturday’s opening race at the Japanese track, before Johor Motorsports Racing Corvette pair Prince Jefri Ibrahim and Ben Green won on Sunday.

It has set up a finely-poised title showdown with two rounds to go, as Ye and Yuan move back into the lead on 111 points after finishing runner-up to the No. 99 JMR Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R on Sunday, seven clear of Prince Jefri.

Tough weekends for most of the other contenders mean that the title fight is now realistically between the Origine Porsche duo and Prince Jefri, whose regular co-driver Alexander Sims is due to return for the final two rounds at Okayama and Beijing.

Saturday’s race was a straightforward one for Ye and Yuan, as the latter took the start from third and gained the advantage when the two Silver class cars that started ahead, the No. 96 Harmony Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 and the No. 45 FAW Audi Sport Asia Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, served their seven-second pit stop penalties.

Both the Harmony Ferrari of Deng Yi and the FAW Audi of James Yu then came under pressure in the second stint from the second Origine Porsche of Alessio Picariello, who had gained considerable ground in the pits after taking over from Lu Wei.

Picariello had emerged fifth, helped by a drive-through penalty for the title-contending Phantom Global Racing Porsche of Anthony Liu and Dorian Boccolacci, and passed Jordan Love in the No. 66 JMR Corvette before dispatching both Yu and Deng.

A five-second penalty for passing Love off-track illegally wasn’t enough to stop Picariello completing an Origine one-two, while Love was able to pass the two Silver-class cars ahead to claim the final podium spot for himself and Prince Abu Bakar Ibrahim.

A late puncture for the Harmony Ferrari Deng shares with Luo Kailuo cleared the way for the Audi of Yu and Franky Cheng to take fourth place, while another Porsche, the Absolute Racing car of Wang Zhongwei and Patrick Pilet, finished fifth.

JMR Corvettes locked out the front row for Sunday’s race, Green taking pole ahead of Love, and it was a straightforward romp for the No. 99 car despite a late safety car period that wiped out what had been an advantage of around 19 seconds for Prince Jefri.

That was caused by a major shunt on the start-finish straight involving Zhongwei’s Porsche and the Uno Racing Audi of ‘Rio’, who slammed into the barrier separating the pits from the rest of the track after rear-ending his rival at high speed.

While Prince Jefri hung on for a third win of 2025 in the subsequent one-lap shootout, the battle for the remaining podium spots was a great deal more chaotic.

Origine Porsche driver Lu was locked in battle for second with the Climax Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Zhou Bihuang when the two Chinese Bronze drivers collided at Turn 6, as Zhou got on the grass, lost control and slammed into Lu.

That allowed Yuan, delayed by a 15-second success penalty following his and Ye’s win on Saturday, to finish second, but there was more drama to come as Prince Abu Bakar came to blows with Ruan Cunfan’s Team KRC BMW M4 GT3 EVO at the final turn.

Coming through to take third was the Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes-AMG of Cao Qi and Jayden Ojeda, as Cao narrowly held off Vincenzo Ricci in the Absolute Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 that was started by Loris Spinelli.

Origine’s Silver-Am class-entered No. 86 Porsche of Anders Fjordbach and Kerong Li came through for fifth, scoring its first points in the overall classification.

GTWC Asia’s Japan swing continues with the penultimate round of the season at Okayama International Circuit on Aug. 29-31.

RESULTS: Race 1/Race 2