R&B Racing crowned 2023 Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia Teams’ Champions at Sepang

Lu Wei and Patrick Pilet’s victory over teammates Bo Yuan and Leo Ye in Race 2 saw R&B Racing clinch the teams’ crown in style with a 1-2 finish, while Absolute Racing ensured Porsche claimed the top two positions in the final standings.

In qualifying, the #72 HubAuto Racing car of Morris Chen and Álvaro Parente scored its first pole position of the season, with Porsche outfits occupying four of the top five places for the Race 2 grid in Malaysia.

After starting sixth for Race 1, the #4 R&B Racing Porsche just fell short of a podium, with Wei and Pilet climbing to fourth at the chequered flag. Jinlong Bao and Edoardo Mortara made up five places in the #992 Absolute Racing car to take fifth, ahead of the #87 R&B Racing entry of Yuan and Ye, who secured the Silver class victory. Porsche Center Okazaki’s Hiroaki Nagai and Yuta Kamimura finished seventh, with Brian Lee and Hideto Yasuoka rounding out the top 10 in the #14 HubAuto Racing with GTO Porsche.

Sunday’s finale saw a sublime performance from both R&B Racing cars, with the #4 Porsche battling to a second win of the season, while Silver duo Yuan and Ye climbed from fifth to finish just behind in second overall for the team’s best-ever result in the championship.

Nagai and Kamimura backed up their strong Race 1 showing with fifth on Sunday, while AAS Motorsport by Absolute Racing’s Vutthikorn Inthraphuvasak and Klaus Bachler finished ahead of the #992 Absolute Racing Porsche in sixth. Chen and Parente bounced back after an incident in Saturday’s contest to claim a strong eighth-place result for the HubAuto Racing squad, making it six Porsche entries in the top-10 in the final race of the campaign.

Kiyoshi Uchiyama and Tsubasa Kondo narrowly missed out on points after a promising showing in Race 1, where they crossed the line in 12th, just 1.667s away from a top-10 result. The EBM Giga Racing squad improved in Race 2 after a challenging opener, with Setiawan Santoso and Tanart Sathienthirakul finishing 18th in the #8 car, one place ahead of the #61 of Adrian Henry D'Silva and Reid Harker.

In the GT3-Am category, Modena Motorsports driver Antares Au enjoyed a near perfect weekend on his Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia debut, qualifying on pole position and an impressive 11th overall for Race 1, before taking a double victory. AMAC Motorsport pair Andrew Macpherson and Ben Porter secured back-to-back second-place finishes to end the season as GT3-Am overall runners-up.

That concludes a superb season for Porsche in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia series, which on top of R&B Racing’s GT3 teams’ championship victory, included a Japan Cup title for Porsche Center Okazaki in Okayama and second in the GT4 standings for Checkshop Caymania Racing. Across five months of action and visits to Buriram, Fuji, Motegi, Suzuka, Okayama and Sepang, Porsche finished on the podium in 11 of the 12 races, making for an extremely successful debut season for the Porsche 911 GT3 R (992).

Porsche was the best-represented manufacturer throughout the campaign, with an incredible 12 cars taking on the final round. The marque was delighted to welcome back long-standing customers, while also welcoming new teams and drivers to the brand, through their debut GT3 seasons, with every entry taking away results they can be proud of across the year. Alongside the GT3 entries, the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport also made a successful series debut in 2023, with Checkshop Caymania taking second overall in the GT4 Japan Cup.

Yuan Bo, R&B Racing: “It was a smooth weekend for us, with both cars having great pace and consistency throughout, eventually resulting in an incredible 1-2 finish. To win the championship in our first season competing in Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia is an amazing achievement. The team put in so much hard work and we’re very grateful for their efforts. There’s always room for improvement in motorsport, so we’ll work hard during the off-season to prepare for next year.”

Leo Ye, R&B Racing: “I’m very proud of the team and delighted with this title. We had a good start to Race 2, but then had to manage the tyres to ensure we delivered the 1-2 for the crew. I’m so happy our hard work has paid off, there’s been ups and downs this year but we delivered when we needed to. Looking forward to returning next season and aiming even higher!”

Lu Wei, R&B Racing: “I’ve been unwell recently so we started the weekend a bit off the pace, but thanks to the help of the crew and my teammates, we built ourselves back up to our best. I gained a lot of experience this season that we will use next year, and I hope to be in the fight for the titles again in 2024.”

Patrick Pilet, R&B Racing: “It was a great feeling to finish the season with a 1-2 finish and championship victory for the team. Lu did amazingly in the car and controlled the second half of the race perfectly, so I’m delighted to end the season with such a brilliant result.”

Ray Li, R&B Racing Team Director: “2023 is the first season we compete in Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia, and to win in such a competitive field is a massive achievement. We’ve had difficult moments this season but the whole team worked hard to keep fighting until the end. I’m very happy with our performance and to take the title, and I look forward to an even better season next year!”