Craft-Bamboo Racing will start the Sepang 12-Hour Endurance race on the front row, after setting the second fastest three-driver average lap time of the day. It was an intense qualifying battle that saw every tenth of a second count on the Sepang International Circuit, where Warren Luff (AUS), Frank Yu (HKG) and Stefan Mücke (DEU) put in top performances to line their Aston Martin Vantage V12 GT3 in second place.
Luff went out for the first qualifying session in the team’s #007. From the start, Luff was the fastest driver and kept on improving his pace despite a light drizzle at the back straight halfway through the stint. On his last lap out, Luff managed a first sector improvement to set his fastest time, 2:03.753.
After the session, the V8 driver said, “I am very happy with the car, we went out on the hard tyres to begin with, to get a feel for the balance. The car was good on hard and when we went on the soft there was some light rain on the back part of the circuit, so I didn’t quite have the confidence around the fast part at the back to really push on. I think we definitely could have gone faster but the conditions weren’t quite ideal.
“We definitely have got a good car for the race, it probably isn’t going to be the fastest car during qualifying but we know we have got a good car for the race. Obviously with the three of us being so competitive, we probably have one of the strongest line-ups” said Luff.
Yu went out for the second qualifying session and he was in the top three at the start of the session. The leader board was changing a lot during the competitive session, but Yu stayed focus and kept improving his lap time to maintain the third fastest time with a 2:05.069.
“There isn’t a lot of difference between the different tyre compounds during the day. The soft is a little bit quicker but it also drops off a bit faster as well. The best times were done within the first two laps, so that is exactly what I did” ended Yu.
In the third session, it was German driver Mücke at the wheel for the final shootout for pole. He set the pace early on in the session but was bettered by the Ferrari of Clearwater who has shown a faster straight-line speed this weekend. With two long straights at Sepang, it made an impact on the final result and by the end of the 3 qualifying sessions, the team came 0.368 seconds shy of pole position.
“We went out on the medium and then on the soft set. Actually, everything was good, the car felt good, we did a ‘bang-on’ time on the first set and then we had another go in the second set. The tyres dropped off quite early so it was a basically just the one lap where they had the perfect performance. I have to say that is pretty much the maximum we can get out of the car, for sure there is one or two tenths but not four tenths so that’s our pace”.
Mücke then continued, “I think we can be happy, we have a good average with all three drivers and with only one car in front of us on average. I am looking forward for the race, we have a strong line-up, Frank and Warren did an amazing job with very good lap-times. It’s a very good team effort, the car feels nice and we are confident going into the race tomorrow”.
The Sepang 12-Hour Endurance will flag off at 12 noon Saturday, 30 August and will end at midnight.
