Phantom Global Audis Win Both Okayama Races

Phantom Global Racing’s pair of Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo IIs swept last weekend’s Okayama round of the GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS, as Origine Motorsport Porsche driver Lu Wei moved to the head of the championship standings.

Silver Cup pair Cheng Congfu and Yu Kuai banked their second win of the year on Saturday at the wheel of their FAW Audi Sport-branded No. 14 car, while Jaxon Evans and ‘Andres Pato’ (Andrew Haryanto) won Sunday’s finale in the Pro-Am No. 15 Audi.

Meanwhile, a fourth place and a second for Lu, partnered in the No. 11 Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo by Laurin Heinrich, moved him 22 points clear in the title chase as pre-event leaders Alessandro Ghiretti and Huang Ruohan suffered a weekend to forget.

Cheng and Yu’s path to success in the first of two-hour races at the circuit formerly known as TI Aida was eased by the arrival of rain mid-race and an ill-judged change to wet tires by the leading Absolute Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 squad.

Series returnee Sandy Stuvik had built a six-second lead in the Lambo over second-placed Cheng when a full-course yellow was called for an accident at Turn 1 involving the Song Jiajun’s Harmony Racing Ferrari and Haziq Zairel Oh’s Absolute Porsche.

Stuvik’s co-driver Akash Nandy was sent out on wets, but the vast majority braved it out on slicks and Nandy was soon back in the pits to switch to slicks.

Yu had already emerged in front after the Lambo’s first stop, and when the safety car period that followed the FCY ended, SUPER GT star Atsushi Miyake was up to second aboard the 5ZIGEN Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 started by Takayuki Aoki.

That was how the order at the front remained to the checkered flag, Yu leading Miyake home by 1.983 seconds, while Neil Verhagen charged from fifth to take the final spot at the podium aboard the No. 89 Team KRC BMW M4 GT3 EVO.

Verhagen had to battle his way past Elias Seppanen’s Climax Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo and Liu Kaishun’s Harmony Ferrari 296 GT3, both of whom were also passed in the second stint by Porsche factory star Heinrich’s Origine Porsche.

A drive-through penalty for Seppanen for an FCY infringement allowed Liu to come home fifth in the car he shared with Weian Chen, having crossed the line sixth before Maxime Oosten picked up a penalty for contact in the second KRC BMW.

Points leaders Ghiretti and Ruohan had to make do with eighth place from 14th on the grid, but worse was to come for the pair in Sunday’s second race as Ghiretti sustained damage in a multi-car melee on the first lap and was forced into retirement.

The contact was triggered by Verhagen being nudge wide by Heinrich exiting Turn 2 and the BMW driver then rejoining in the path of Miyake’s Nissan, which sustained heavy front-end damage, and in turn led to Ghiretti rear-ending the 5ZIGEN car.

Nandy’s Lamborghini and Klaus Bachler in the other Absolute Porsche also went off as a result, while Verhagen — penalized for triggering the incident — also spun at the first corner at the start of the second lap after a tap from Liu’s Ferrari.

At the front, polesitter Evans maintained his lead from Oosten, who had started fourth, while Yu slipped from second to third and Heinrich emerged from the early chaos in fourth, pouncing on Yu after a brief full-course yellow period to grab third.

Heinrich was up to second by the time of the mandatory stops as Evans handed over to Pato, who then came under pressure from Lu’s Origine Porsche, and after an entertaining late scrap the pair were split by just 0.089 seconds in a photo finish.

Meanwhile, Oosten’s co-driver Brian Lee came through for third ahead of the Phantom Global Porsche shared by series debutant Ayhancan Guven, who climbed to fourth in the opening stint, and Anthony Liu, and the Harmony Ferrari of Liu and Chen.

Cheng and Yu finished eighth after their success penalty for winning the opener.

Lu heads into the final two weekends of the season with 22 points in hand over fellow Porsche driver Liu, who now finds himself tied with Ghiretti and Ruohan for second in the points but ahead on countback. Cheng and Yu sit 23 points off the lead in fourth.

The GTWC Asia season continues with a visit to the Chinese capital of Beijing on Oct. 3-4.

RESULTS: Race 1/Race 2