It was a perfect weekend for the Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 driven by 20 year old Pasin Lathouras, when he claimed his second win of the weekend in Malaysia during the GT Asia Series Round 8. Lathouras started the race well and kept up with pole sitter, Li Zhi Cong in the Porsche 997 GT3 R, for the first few turns and by turn 11 he managed to take the inside line for the lead. The Thai driver then began to open up a gap to make sure that he would have enough time in hand after the mandatory pit stop to allow for the 15 second Compensation Time added to his stop as a result of his win yesterday. From there, he continued to dominate and maintain the lead all the way through to the chequered flag.
Second place went to the pairing of Jeffrey Lee and Marchy Lee for Team R8 LMS Ultra. Jeffrey started the race for the team from the front row but was unable to fend off the Ferrari of Lathouras. From there, he fought hard to maintain his position from the fast charging Aston Martin Vantage V12 GT3 driven by Frank Yu and the McLaren 12C GT3 driven by Mok Weng Sun. But by the end of lap 2, Yu was by his side at some points of the track and at turn 1, Yu made a move but J.Lee immediately reclaimed the position and two turns later, J.Lee made a mistake that allowed both Yu and Mok to pass, leaving him down in fifth. From there, J.Lee held on to his position and passed over the car to M.Lee as the pit-window opened. Third placed finishers were the Craft Racing AMR pairing of Yu and Darryl O’Young. Yu had the harder first stint battling for position with J.Lee and fending off the charges from Mok, on used tyres. He then passed on the car to O’Young, who went on to maintain a lonely but fast pace to claim third for the team.
An early pit-stop manoeuvre did not go as well for Li in the second race of the weekend. However, the Chinese driver managed to bring the car home in fourth, with Earl Bamber/Samson Chan’s Ford GT3 crossing the line in fifth. Chan started the race for the team in eleventh and managed to make up some positions to hand over the car to Bamber in seventh but a slower pit-stop made them lose ground and Bamber had a few battles with Ro Charlz in the Lamborghini and Alex Yoong and Cheng Cong Fu both in Audis during his stint. Yoong finished the race in sixth for him and his driver partner Francis Hideki Onda, Charlz brought the Lamborghini to seventh for him and Tunku Hammam, whilst Cheng Cong Fu finished in eighth for him and driver partner Philip Ma. LKM Racing’s Siu Yuk Lung battled hard at the start and at the end of the race to maintain his position from start to finish, in ninth.
Jacky Yeung was elated with his new partnership with youngster and Super GT 500 driver, Carlo Van Dam, who battled hard with Wayne Shen for the coveted GTM class win. It is Yeung’s first win in the season and he is happy to have changed cars to the Audi R8 LMS Cup. His elder brother, John Shen finished the race to claim third in the GTM class and was all smiles after the race. “Today was very good, the rolling start was quite smooth. I saw an empty gap in front of me and sort of just drove right through it and by turn 2 I think I passed about two or three cars. I had a better pace today than yesterday, from there I just maintained my pace and finished the race in third”.
Newcomers Craig Liu and Benjamin Lee, were the last finishers of the day. Billy Fung and Asai Akihiro could not start the race as they were faced with mechanical problems with their Lamborghini LP560 GT3. Another unlucky was that of Dilantha Malagamuwa and Rizal Ramli. Malagamuwa had a solid race and passed the car over to local driver, Ramli who looked on pace during his stint. But an issue with the car’s rear caused Ramli to lose control at turn 4, ending his race in the gravel on lap 19.
The GT Asia Series cars are now being packed and moving to the penultimate round in China at the Zhuhai International Circuit on 11th to 13th October before they head to Macau for the season finale at the 60th Macau GP.
