Mok Weng Sun set the fastest time of the GT Asia Series drivers during the first Qualifying session held today at the 59th Macau Grand Prix. The Series is running its finale as part of the City of Dreams Macau GT Cup where a number of Internationally acclaimed drivers have joined in for the weekend. The session was slightly delayed from an incident during the CTM Macau Touring Car Cup Qualifying held earlier. There have also been talks of an impending storm and the weather changed during the session from clear to darker skies and strong winds which started to cool the circuit and change the track conditions. Mok, running in Team Clearwater Racing’s Ferrari 458 GT3, set the sixth fastest time of the day with 2 minutes 26.653 seconds. Despite having the maximum success ballast of 120kg added to his car, the Singaporean is more than 3 seconds ahead of his closest GT Asia Series competitor, Frank Yu.
Yu in the Ford GT3 of Craft Eurasia Racing is eighth fastest and is just 0.6 seconds ahead of Peter Li Zhi Cong. Li is the only Chinese driver in the Series and is currently second in the GT Asia Series Championship having had a good season so far with Asia Racing Team in the Porsche 911 GT3R. This is the first visit to the Guia Circuit for the 19-year-old. Jeffrey Lee improved his pace remarkably from yesterday after a few set-up changes and discussion with the Audi R8 LMS Cup engineers. He finished the day’s session tenth fastest dropping eleven seconds from his practice time yesterday. Lucas Di Grassi, 2005 Formula 3 Macau Grand Prix winner, in Autoitalia/AF Corse’s Ferrari 458 GT3 set the fastest time of the day with 2 minutes 22.305 seconds. He edged out the Audi R8 LMS of Edoardo Mortara, the Macau GT Cup defending champion and two-time Formula 3 Macau Grand Prix winner, who led most of the session.
Newly crowned 2012 Porsche Carrera Cup Asia Champion, Alexandre Imperatori topped the timesheets in third with 2 minutes 25.125 seconds. Former GT Asia Series driver and 2011 PCCA Champion, Keita Sawa set the fourth fastest time in the LKM Racing’s Porsche 911 GT3R. Sawa is less than 0.6 seconds ahead of Macau’s favourite driver Daniel Watts in the McLaren MP4-12C. There are two Qualifying sessions for the City of Dreams Macau GT Cup where the best time out of the two sessions will be used to determine the grid for the race on Sunday. The GT Asia Series will continue at the 59th Macau Grand Prix with Qualifying 2 on Saturday, 17th November at 12.50pm. The 12-lap season finale will be held on Sunday, 18th November at 9am.
