Weekend notebook: wins and top-ten finishes across Asia and America

The opening leg of the GT World Challenge Asia at Malaysia’s Sepang circuit brought wins and class podiums for the Ferrari cars entered. A eight-place finish was the best result in the first Sprint Race of the American IMSA championship at Long Beach, while in Super GT Japan at Okayama, the highest-placed 296 GT3 finished twelfth.

IMSA. Brendan Iribe and Frederik Schandorff took the No. 70 Inception Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 to an eighth-place finish in the competitive GTD class, the lone production-based class competing on the iconic 11-turn, 1.968-mile street circuit in the seaside community. The result earned the two the Bronze Cup victory as the IMSA SportsCar Championship shifted into Sprint Cup mode after the classic season-opening endurance rounds at Daytona and Sebring. Irribe started 13th and held that position before pitting under caution with 43 minutes remaining in the 100-minute event. Schandorff returned to the streets in 10th, and managed to gain two positions in the closing laps. Sheena Monk and Stevan McAleer finished 14th after starting 15th in Triarsi Competizione’s No. 021 JG Wentworth Ferrari.

Manny Franco qualified an impressive fourth in Conquest Racing’s No. 34 Ferrari 296 GT3, but was forced to take evasive action following the hectic start and drove down an escape route. He returned to the fray and made up significant ground as he put in the second-fastest lap at the time in GTD, moving up the order. However, 20 minutes into the race he took to the pits, retiring in 16th position, before teammate and Ferrari factory driver Daniel Serra even had the opportunity to drive.

Next up for Ferrari will be another California seaside event, the Monterey SportsCar Classic at Raceway Laguna Seca on May 11.

GT World Challenge Asia. The Asian series of the GT World Challenge kicked off at the Malaysian circuit of Sepang, where two races, each lasting 60 minutes, were contested. The first, held on Saturday, saw the number 96 Ferrari 296 GT3 of Winhere Harmony Racing finish sixth overall and second in the Silver class, with a crew line-up of Chinese drivers Yi Deng and Chen Weian. The team’s other car, the number 55 of Lorenzo Patrese and Liu Hangcheng, finished fourth in the Silver Am category. In Pro Am, the number 98 of Absolute Corse, entrusted to Anderson Tanoto and Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer – entered for this leg only – crossed the line in eighth. Finally, defending champions in the Am class, Garage 75, began their title defence with a second-place finish courtesy of David Tjiptobiantoro and Christian Colombo, while Japan’s Shigekazu Wakisaka and Kei Nakanishi came fifth in the same category in the number 60 of LMCorsa.

In the second race, contested on Sunday, the top-finishing Ferrari crossed the line in sixteenth place overall, but first in class: David Tjiptobiantoro and Christian Colombo secured victory in the Am category with the number 75 Garage 75 296 GT3. The number 55 of Winhere Harmony Racing, with Lorenzo Patrese and Liu Hangcheng, finished twentieth overall and eighth in Silver Am, while Shigekazu Wakisaka and Kei Nakanishi were twenty-fifth overall and fifth in the Am class with the number 60 of LMCorsa. Third place in the Silver class went to the number 96 of Winhere Harmony Racing, with Yi Deng and Chen Weian finishing twenty-sixth overall. The number 98 car of Tanoto and Simmenauer, entered by Absolute Corse, was forced to retire following contact.

The second round of the GT World Challenge Asia is set for the weekend of 9 to 11 May at Indonesia’s Mandalika circuit.

Super GT. It was a tough race for the three Ferrari 296 GT3s entered in the season-opener of Japan’s Super GT series at Okayama in the GT300 class. The best result went to the number 45 of Ponos Racing, entrusted to Kei Cozzolino and Takuro Shinohara, who finished twelfth, one lap behind the winners. Rikuto Kobayashi and Zak O’Sullivan took seventeenth place in the number 7 CarGuy MKS Racing car, while the number 6 of Velorex, crewed by Roberto Merhi Muntan and Yoshiaki Katayama, was disqualified.

The Super GT will return on the track on 4 and 5 May at Fuji.