13 April 2017
Maranello, 12 April 2017 - Anthony Liu and Davide Rizzo executed a perfect pit strategy to claim overall and Pro-Am victory aboard BBT’s Ferrari 488 GT3 in the second hour-long Blancpain GT Series Asia race of the championship’s inaugural weekend at Sepang. The team opted to stop earlier than their rivals and reaped the rewards by moving from sixth to first once the 10-minute pit window closed. T2 Motorsports’ Greg Teo Bee Tat and David Tjiptobiantoro got one over on their KCMG Audi rivals Naoto Takeda and Takuya Shirasaka to also give Ferrari the Am-Am class win.
Start. Rui Aguas’ demon start initially helped his Spirit of Race Ferrari jump from fourth on the grid to first on the opening lap after relieving pole-sitter Alex Young of the lead. It took the Audi driver 10 minutes to find his way back past before building a three-second gap ahead of the pitstops. Rizzo was also in the mix in his BBT Ferrari.
Strategy. BBT were the first of the front-runners to pit, a decision that ultimately won them the race. A clear, unimpeded pit area plus Liu’s quick out-laps and delays for others helped the Ferrari emerge with a healthy advantage once the stops had shaken out. Indeed, his lead of 17s had increased to 26.7s by the end of the race. The battle for the remaining podium places swung backwards and forwards as the second stint developed. A poor pitstop for Yoong initially dropped co-driver Alex Au to third, Aguas’ co-driver Nasrat Muzayyin span on his out-lap, and Sun Jingzu - who’d taken over the Milestone Racing Audi driven by Cheng - dropped to 12th as the race developed. Spirit of Race’s Xin Jiang and Massimiliano Wieser’s Ferrari, second in the Pro-Am class in Race-1 rounded out the points-paying positions in 10th.
Am-Am class. Am-Am again developed into a straight fight between Race-1 winner KCMG Audi driven by Takeda and Shirasaka, and T2 Motorsports’ Ferrari of Teo Bee Tat and Tjiptobiantoro. The latter pair finished second in the opener but went one better in Race-2 thanks to Teo Bee Tat’s pass on Takeda after the pit-stops. Blancpain GT Series Asia resumes at the Chang International Circuit in Thailand on May 20/21.