It was a spectacular win for the Ferrari 458 GT3 of Team Clearwater Racing when Mok Weng Sun drove a battle filled race to claim the Round 5 win of the GT Asia Series. As usual, Fuji Speedway Circuit provided for an interesting race with unpredictable weather, where the race started damp and finished amidst a slow drizzle. Mok took the F458 into a great fight with the Porsche 997 GT3R of Hisao Shigeta for most of the race. The duo continued their battle after the pit-stop when Shigeta made a better stop as Mok took a longer time to change tyres. Behind them, Li Zhi Cong in the third of the 997 GT3R had an interesting outing, managing to climb to third from fifth at the first corner at the start of the race. Then he maintained his position all the way to the pit-stop session, after which he made a mistake and spun the car at turn 7 dropping down to fifth behind the Ford GT of Frank Yu. The duo had a good battle before Li managed to overtake Yu for fourth towards the end of the race.
David Lai kept a good clean race in his Team Clearwater Racing’s Ferrari 458 GT3 with Yukinori Taniguchi coming in seventh in the second of the Audi R8 LMS. Samson Chan had an interesting race in his Craft Eurasia Racing Hong Kong’s Ford GT3 competing with Jeffrey Lee at the start, overtaking one another before Lee made a move at the last turn of lap five and kept the position. But Jeffrey was penalised with a drive through after he came into the stop a little over the speed limit, causing his driver partner, Marchy Lee, to have to serve the penalty after the driver switch, dropping them down the ranks before he picked up the pace and places to finish ninth in the Audi R8 LMS Ultra.
Both Hiro Nishida in the BMW Z4 and Dilantha Malagamuwa had to make it a game of catch up when Nishida was given a penalty for a qualifying session infringement, dropping him down six places for the start of the race, while Malagamuwa had a start incident with Jeffrey touching his bumper and causing him to spin dropping him to the back of the grid on the first lap. Nishida finished tenth while Malagamuwa crossed in eleventh. In the GTM class, Hideki Onda claimed the win in Tunewear Racing’s Ferrari 430 GT beating Francis Tjia in an identical F430 of Modena Motorsports’.
Clifford Chen claimed his first podium ever and after a long time away from racing. He was elated with the podium and is already looking forward to the next race. “This is my first time on the podium and I am lucky. They are very tough competitors, I try to play safe. The circuit is very nice and very interesting” he said with a huge smile. Jacky Yeung and Sasha Chu were the only two other finishers of the day, Yeung took fifteenth in Arrows Racing’s Lamborghini Gallardo while Chu crossed the line sixteenth for Asia Racing Team. The GT Asia Series continues with Round 6 held at Fuji Speedway Circuit on Sunday, 15 July 2012 at 12.10pm.
