Beijing: 5ZIGEN wins Race 1; four crews remain in title contention ahead of decider

This year’s overall GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS drivers’ championship battle is going down to the wire in Beijing after 5ZIGEN’s Hirobon and Yu Kanamaru triumphed in the first of Sunday’s two hour-long races around the Chinese capital’s new street circuit.

The Nissan started seventh but benefitted from issues that affected several championship contenders, which also helped the likes of Brian Lee and Nico Menzel to finish just 0.280s behind the winners despite their GTO Porsche starting 19th.

However, Hirobon and Kanamaru’s overall victory could not deny their class rivals Ruan Cunfan and Maxime Oosten the Silver-Am title. Their Team KRC BMW also charged through from a lowly grid slot to complete the outright podium.

Further back, the Am crown was retained by David Tjiptobiantoro and his Garage 75 colleague Christian Colombo. Third was enough for the Ferrari despite fellow contender Setiawan Santoso and his new co-driver Liam Talbot taking class honours for EBM.

Focus now turns to the hour-long finale. Lu Wei starts six points behind his Origine team-mates Bob Yuan and Leo Ye who were on course to retain their title in Race 1 before a stop-go penalty dropped them outside of the overall top 10. The same pitstop infringement also prevented JMR’s Jefri Ibrahim from scoring, so he remains 15 behind the leading Porsche, while a big accident could prevent Phantom’s Anthony Liu and Dorian Boccolacci from taking the start.

5ZIGEN GATECRASHES TITLE SCRAP

A clean start saw all 24 cars make it through Turn 1 and around the opening lap – never a given at a street circuit, and especially one new to the calendar.

Deng Yi converted pole into the early lead from Harmony team-mate Zhang Yaqi who re-passed the fast-starting Huang Ruohan. But Liu was also on the offensive and had moved up to second when Cao Qi’s Turn 1 off necessitated a Safety Car period after 13 minutes.

The race resumed at full speed just before the pit window opened but was almost immediately brought back under Safety Car conditions when an unspecified issue sent Liu’s Porsche into the leading Ferrari on the run towards Turn 1. Significant damage resulted in both cars retiring on the spot and promoting Zhang into the lead.

The pitstops began under Safety Car conditions, so it was no surprise when almost the entire field poured in at the first time of asking. Championship leader Yuan was, at that point, up to fourth from 11th and on course to wrap up the title with a race to spare. But his and Ye’s pitstop took, like several others, less than the minimum time permitted, triggering a stop-go penalty once the Safety Car was withdrawn.

The same applied to fellow overall championship contender Ibrahim, whose co-driver Ben Green ran third immediately after the stops before being called back in, and the FAW/Phantom Audi that briefly inherited the lead thanks to its short stationary time.

A similar penalty for Harmony’s remaining Ferrari, Lu Wei’s 15 seconds of success time for winning at Okayama, and a mechanical issue for the Absolute Corse Lamborghini all also contributed towards the 5ZIGEN Nissan somewhat surprisingly emerging out front despite running ninth early on. Kanamaru’s run to the flag was anything but straightforward, though, thanks to Menzel’s presence in GTO’s Porsche which loomed large in the GT-R’s mirrors over the final 10 minutes.

Absolute’s Newman-liveried entry was on course to complete the podium until a late incident with the charging Bastian Buus – for which no further action was taken – helped KRC’s BMW to leapfrog both 911s. Alexander Sims also took advantage in the JMR Corvette he shares with Abu Bakar Ibrahim, while Buus ultimately slipped to sixth behind Patrick Pilet and Wang Zhongwei’s Absolute Porsche.

However, that result has at least seen Lu reduce his 14-point deficit to six ahead of the finale – a scenario he would have gladly taken before the start considering his success penalty.

Daniel Lu’s late retirement also inadvertently kept the Silver class championship alive by promoting Craft-Bamboo’s Liang to victory and eighth overall alongside O’Young. The extra points coupled with Cheng Congfu and Yu Kuai’s pitstop penalty leaves the FAW/Phantom Audi duo 23 clear with 25 still to play for.

Two Am cars completed the top 10 with Santoso/Talbot beating Liu/Renger (Elegant). But that wasn’t sufficient to deny Tjiptobiantoro and Colombo the title.

Results are HERE