Fanatec GT Asia Qualifying : Yu and Buus seal Okayama poles

James Yu and Bastian Buus sealed Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia Powered by AWS pole positions at Okayama this morning.

Absolute Racing’s Audi beat the Phantom Pro R8 of Franky Cheng by 0.2s in Q1 before Origine’s Porsche paced a frenetic second session in which top spot changed hands several times over. Craft-Bamboo’s Mercedes-AMG driven by ‘local’ Brazilian JP de Oliveira ultimately completed the front row 0.095s behind Buus.

Silver-graded drivers predictably shone in Q1, but they were run close by Origine’s Chinese pair Lu Wei and Bob Yuan. The latter set the early pace before Franky Cheng moved Phantom’s Audi to the head of the field.

He improved twice more thereafter but couldn’t match the pace of Yu whose 1m28.712s swung the contest Audi Sport Asia Team Absolute’s way with just under four minutes remaining.

Lu was the only driver to make significant gains after that, first moving up to fourth and then pipping team-mate Yuan on his final run. Primary championship rival Anthony Liu, meanwhile, could only qualify ninth.

Hirobon continued Team 5ZIGEN’s impressive recent run by qualifying fifth – one spot behind Silver-Am title rival Yuan. The Nissan shares row three with Silver class championship leader Tanart Sathienthirakul (Absolute Racing).

The class pole positions were completed by Ben Porter who qualified AMAC’s Porsche first in Am and 11th overall.

Q2, meanwhile, was intense. Just nine tenths covered the top 20 in one of Fanatec GT Asia’s most frenetic-ever qualifying sessions. Provisional pole changed hands nine times across the 15 minutes, but it was Buus – who set fastest time on three separate occasions – who won the day.

The Dane, who joins Origine for the first time this weekend, was the first to set a representative time. But that 1m28.594s was ultimately lowered by seven tenths as the battle for pole also played out between Max Oosten, Dorian Boccolacci and Edoardo Liberati.

Phantom Pro’s Boccolacci twice hit the front but was pegged back by Buus on both occasions. It was indicative of the session that the Frenchman qualified only fifth despite playing such a starring role.

Buus’ best of 1m27.877s was less than a tenth faster than De Oliveira, who only moved into contention towards the end of the session, while Ralf Aron – who was a mainstay of the top six without ever setting fastest time – finished a fraction behind in Climax’s Mercedes-AMG.

VSR’s Lamborghini slipped to fourth, although Liberati was less than two tenths shy of pole, and Boccolacci finished fifth just 0.06s further back. Luca Stolz rounded out the top six for Triple Eight JMR.

Silver-Am honours went to Absolute Corse’s Ferrari and Finn Gehrsitz in eighth overall, while Akash Nandy sealed a second Silver pole for Absolute’s #40 Audi. Zhou Bihuang was fastest of the Am contingent for Climax.

Results are HERE & HERE