Scores of fans flocked to the 4.01km Ningbo International Speedpark for the final day of the Audi Sport R8 LMS Cup debut, where Singha Plan-B by Absolute Racing’s Bhurit Bhirombhakdi took a dominant victory in round six of the championship. The Thai driver snatched the lead from pole-sitter Andrew Haryanto of ProMax Team in the early stages of the 16-lap race, putting himself more than 11 seconds ahead of the Indonesian, who crossed the line in second.
The final podium place went to Yasser Shahin in The Bend Motorsport Park Audi R8 LMS GT3, the Australian once again forced to fight his way back from an early race setback.
“The Ningbo International Speedpark has proven to be the perfect battleground for the Audi Sport R8 LMS Cup’s privateer field,” said Martin Kuehl, Director of Audi Sport customer racing Asia. “The championship is on a knife-edge as is the race for the third seat on our 2019 24 Hours of Spa team ahead of our upcoming double-header in Shanghai.”
The weekend double-header saw Haryanto’s points advantage in the battle for the 2018 Audi Sport R8 LMS Cup championship title reduced to just six points with the Indonesian on 105 points and Bhirombhakdi on 99. Very much in the title race, Shahin lies third on 73 and round five winner Sun Jingzu of Absolute Racing is just eight points behind him on 65. Cup star Jeffrey Lee (35 points) of Team Audi Volkswagen Taiwan is fifth in the GT3 standings, 30 points adrift of Sun.
Absolute Racing’s Anderson Tanoto took his second GT4 Cup victory of the season in round six, propelling up to the top of the category leaderboard (67 points). Chinese singer and movie star Han Geng (36 points) sits fourth in the class after his Cup debut.
Cup newcomer Jeffrey Zee took home GTC honours once more in round six in the Spirit Z Racing Team Audi R8 LMS Cup car.
The race for the Road to Spa seat from the China rounds remains wide open and will be decided next month in Shanghai, with the highest combined GT3 points scorer from rounds five to eight joining Haryanto and Bhirombhakdi on the Audi Sport R8 LMS Cup team for the 2019 24 Hours of Spa. Sun is currently in pole position to claim it with 37 points scored in China thus far, but Shahin is just a whisker behind on 33 and Jeffrey Lee placed third (22 points).
