The GT Asia Series battle continues in the heat of Thailand

The new Chang International Circuit hosted the final round of the 2015 GT Asia Series, and it provided an epic finale laced with plenty of intrigue, including a final race that saw the title contenders line up side-by-side separated by just a single championship point and with everything on the line.

History will show that Craft Bamboo Racing’s Darryl O’Young suffered every emotion possible that weekend after beaching the #99 VLT Aston Martin in the gravel in qualifying, forcing a rear-of-field start for the opening race. Aided by impressive English team-mate Daniel Lloyd, the former Macau GT race winner emerged from the two rounds as a worthy champion, whilst Chang International emerged as a circuit to respect and a circuit capable of delivering more than it’s fair share of surprises..

That was October 2015, when conditions were a lot more comfortable than is expected this weekend, with temperatures likely to be in the mid-high 30s, providing the GT Asia Series regulars with a different kind of challenge, a situation which may well be exacerbated on Sunday with the expectation of rain!

Bentley, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Porsche...

Coming into the second event of the season, it is Bentley who are without doubt the favourites, especially after Keita Sawa and Jonathan Venter claimed two wins from two starts at the opening round in South Korea, and Bentley Team Absolute were also the pace-setters at Buriram during the Series’ maiden visit in 2015 setting pole for both races, before taking victory in the first.

Their pace though may be under threat at Buriram, not the least due to the expected high humidity, but also due to a change in the BoP [Balance of Performance]. After their dominant victories last month, all three Continental GT3s will be carrying lower turbo boost than the previous round. They aren’t the only ones either, the rapid Lamborghini Huracan GT3 of rising Italian stars Andrea Amici and Edoardo Liberati has been handed a bigger inlet restrictor, whilst the Audis have taken a weight reduction, in an effort to close up the competition at front of the field.

Buriram however will be missing some of the Series regulars after South Korea. Points leader Keita Sawa is in France alongside three-time GT Asia Series champion Mok Weng Sun and former Series regular Rob Bell for an assault on the annual Le Mans 24 Hour race. That will see young Bentley favourite Fabian Hamprecht join Venter in the #8 Bentley, whilst the Clearwater Racing team have parked their gorgeous new Ferrari 488 GT3 to take their crew - the first Singaporean team entered in the annual 24-Hour classic - to Le Mans.

Another absentee will be Sawa’s Bentley team-mate Andrew Palmer, the young American having suffered an incident during practice for the most recent round of the US-based GT3 series in which Bentley Team Absolute competes, forcing them to draft in 2015 Buriram star Duncan Tappy to play a cameo role as the American recovers in hospital.

Whilst Venter and Sawa comfortably lead the outright points, there is also a strong battle brewing in the Pro-Am class between former race winner Anthony Liu in the new BBT Ferrari 488, Thailand’s Piti Bhirombhakdi and Phoenix Racing Asia’s Shaun Thong.

Thong, like team-mates Marchy Lee and Alex Yoong formed part of a four-man crew (with Absolute Racing’s Franky Cheng) in the recent Nurburgring 24 Hour race, the all-Asian crew running strongly in treacherous conditions before contact with the barriers just ahead of midnight brought their run to a premature end. Despite the setback all four drivers were fast, and will carry that form into Buriram.

GTC will also provide plenty of action, with the two local Ferrari 458 Challenge cars of Bhurit Bhirombhakdi and the returning Voravud Bhirombhakdi battling with fellow locals Suttiluck ‘Bobby’ Buncharoen in the True Visions Porsche, and Aekrat Discharoen and Pinet Piyaoui who will share the A Motorsport Type 991 Porsche.

Who to watch out for

With the weather providing a huge unknown this weekend, predictions will be difficult, but based on the opening round of the championship and the results of the maiden event for GT Asia at Buriram last season, Bentley could be tough to beat.

Don’t rule out the FFF Racing Lamborghini though, with the two sharp young Italians, nor the Phoenix Racing Asia Audi R8s. Team-mates Marchy Lee, Shaun Thong and Alex Yoong made a return to the daunting Nurburgring 24 Hour race two weeks after the South Korean round and all three ran strongly, in the process gaining valuable experience in new Audi R8 LMS GT3, and in traffic, they will put that knowledge to good use this weekend.

Keep a close eye too on the #37 BBT Ferrari 488 GT3 of multiple race winners Anthony Liu and Davide Rizzo. Despite being well down on straight line speed in South Korea, the long-time driving partners eked out a pair of podium finishes and were vocal at their displeasure in watching the Bentley’s disappear into the distance.. They will be keen to make amends, and haven’t been title contenders over the last two seasons without reason!

In the race for Pro-Am honours, it is likely the leading trio will once more be in the mix, with Anthony Liu, Piti Bhirombhakdi and Shaun Thong all expected to be in the battle for the podium, but don’t discount experienced veteran Frank Yu. The Craft-Bamboo team boss couldn’t have had a worse start to the 2016 season, with a number of off circuit incidents, few of which were self-inflicted.

Despite the 2016 Porsche GT3-R being new to the multiple GT Asia Series race winners, Richard Lyons proved more than capable of extracting pace from the gorgeous Interush Type 991 Porsche, topping the timesheets ahead of qualifying in South Korea. Sadly, contact with the barriers in Q2 and retirement from the lead of the opening race after contact from Liberati in the FFF Huracan put paid to their efforts, a situation only compounded in race two after a tyre failure left them stranded trackside.

They will be back in the action this weekend, and the 2015 Buriram race winning team will be keen to make amends and open up their 2016 account with a serious haul of points.

The GTC class will also see a tight battle at Buriram, with the returning Voravud Bhirombhakdi battling cousin and points leader Bhurit Bhirombhakdi, the two teams campaigning their Ferrari 458 Challenge cars, although unlike the final round of the 2015 championship where they won a race apiece, this time they will have different co-drivers. Kantasak Kusiri stays in the Singha Plan-B Motorsport car, whilst his seat in the Singha Motorsport Team Thailand car will be taken by rising touring car star Tin Sritrai who himself was a winner at Buriram in TCR Asia during the October season finale.

With no unofficial testing on the Thursday prior to each round in season 2016, teams will have their first chance to turn laps of the popular Buriram circuit on Friday, with three one hour sessions scheduled across the day. With temperatures expected to be in the mid-high 30s, driver comfort will play a big part across the weekend, so too fitness, with both races scheduled for the heat of the early afternoon.

Asia GT Series