With the first free practices held on Friday, the second round of the Blancpain GT World Challenge Asia officially gets underway, with the Chang International Circuit in Thailand the protagonist.
Two on the start-line. Thirty cars, including twenty-four GT3s, will be in the running on the 4.55-kilometre,12-curve course, some 410 km from Bangkok. Among these, two Ferraris will take the start-line, deployed by T2 Motorsports and HubAuto Corsa. David Tjiptobiantoro and Rio Haryanto, in the Pro-Am class, will look to reaffirm the top ten achieved in the Sepang race, while in the GT3S class, aboard the 488 GT3 of HubAuto Corsa, Japanese driver Yuya Sakamoto will be joined by New Zealander Andre Heimgartner who replaces David Russell with whom he raced in Malaysia.
Free practice underway. In the first free practice session, marked by high temperatures and humidity, the Ferraris occupied middle positions, with HubAuto Corsa number 27 in seventh place in the GT3S and T2 Motorsports 488 GT3 in eleventh spot in the Pro class Am. In the second session, momentarily stopped by two red flags and hampered by rain, the Ferraris showed clear-cut progress. The HubAuto Corsa car finished first among the GT3S, to place second overall, while T2 Motorsports finished seventh in the Pro-Am category.
Schedule. On Saturday, the program is set to include two 15-minute qualifying sessions kicking off at 12:02 and 12:24 local time (7:02 and 7:24 in Italy), with the first of the two races getting the green flag at 15:30 (10:30 in Italy). Meanwhile on Sunday, Race-2 gets underway at 11:45 Thai local time, corresponding to 06:45 in Italy.