14th Place Triple Eight JMR Mercedes Wins Race 2 At Fuji

Abu Ibrahim and Luca Stolz were declared the winners of GT World Challenge Asia Race 2 at Fuji Speedway on Sunday after all but four cars that finished the one-hour race were given post-race time penalties of at least 30 seconds.

27 cars were given 30-second post-race time penalties because they did not obey Race Control’s instructions to avoid an incident on the start-finish straight by passing through the pit lane during the third Safety Car period.

That Safety Car was caused when Jeffrey Lee in the #77 Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 suffered a mechanical failure that pitched him into the pit wall down Fuji’s front stretch. Lee walked away from the crash unhurt, and he and Maxi Götz were credited with a 32nd-place classification.

The barrage of post-race time penalties promoted the #88 Triple Eight JMR Mercedes of Ibrahim and Stolz from 14th in the original classification to first, and the #8 EBM Porsche 911 GT3 R (Setiawan Santoso/Reid Harker) from 19th to 2nd. The original winner, the #47 D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 (Satoshi Hoshino/Tomonobu Fujii), was also given a 10-second time penalty for track limits infringements, which allowed the #4 R&B Racing Porsche (Wei Lu/Dennis Olsen) to claim third and dropped Hoshino and Fujii to seventh.

There were some other significant incidents that impacted the race.

On the opening lap, the #500 5Zigen Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 was taken out after first-corner contact, bringing out the first Safety Car of the race.

Then at the 15-minute mark, triumph turned to tragedy for Race 1 winners Bingo Sports. Akira Iida was battling Hiroshi Hamaguchi in the mid-pack when the two cars touched down the front stretch. The #9 Callaway Corvette C7 GT3-R of Iida was sent spinning into the guardrail on the left and hit right-side first, then bounced back into the path of the #19 Spirit of FFF Racing  Lamborghini Huracán GT3.

Both drivers were okay. But there is now genuine concern that the #9 Corvette, the fifth example of the Callaway C7 GT3-R that has been produced, may have run its last race, 24 hours after a very popular win in Race 1.

Seconds before Lee’s crash along the front stretch, the leading #911 AAS Motorsport by Absolute Racing Porsche of Vutthikorn Inthraphuvasak and the #2 Climax Racing Mercedes of Bihuang Zhou made contact around 100R, which sent Vutthikorn off course. Zhou was given a 30-second time penalty after the race for avoidable contact.

The #7 Comet Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 (Yusuke Yamasaki/Yorikatsu Tsujiko) was classified tenth and declared the GT3 Am winner after the #55 McLaren 720S GT3 of Tadao Uematsu didn’t complete his compulsory pit stop within the ten-minute window.

In GT4, the #718 Checkshop Caymania Racing Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport (Naohiko Otsuka/Sho Kobayashi) took the win on track – and kept it even after time penalties were applied.

Images © SRO Motorsports Group