Martin Rump and Cheng Congfu finished second in the penultimate race of the Blancpain GT Series Asia season in Ningbo, China. The Absolute Racing duo were impressive to secure their third podium of the season and move up to third in the Silver Cup. Teammates Adderly Fong and Andrew Kim secured their maiden Pro/Am victory of the season in round 11, crossing the line fourth overall from a starting position of 12th after a strong performance from both drivers.
The race had started with carnage on the first lap that Kim capitalised on to jump seven positions. The melee saw four cars eliminated, one of which was the third Absolute Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 of Anthony Liu and Alessio Picariello. Chinese ace, Liu, was unlucky to be sucked in to the drama at turn two after catching the eye as the fastest qualifying Audi driver. The bronze-ranked privateer had been the quickest amateur driver on track by far in the morning’s session – to start round 11 fifth, in amongst the professionals in the field.
Classified sixth in round 11 was the Silver-ranked OD Racing Team WRT pair of Mitch Gilbert and Aditya Patel. Patel had also seized the opportunity that presented itself on the opening lap to advance through the field at the race start, and Gilbert followed up with a strong stint to cross the line seventh. The pair were later promoted one place after a competitor was hit with a post-race penalty.
“It was a tough race with lots of incidents and action today. Our customer teams kept their concentration to extract impressive results from the challenging race,” said Martin Kuehl, Director of Audi Sport customer racing Asia. “Congratulations to Martin Rump and Cheng Congfu for their podium and also to Adderly Fong and Andrew Kim for their class win.”
