Franky Cheng and Milestone Racing recorded the fastest time over two days of testing at Sepang International Circuit this week ahead of the championship’s inaugural event at the same Malaysian venue this weekend.
The Chinese driver, who shares the Absolute Racing-run Audi R8 LMS GT3 with Sun Jingzu, posted a best lap of 2m04.132s during Wednesday’s first track test. That time would remain unbeaten over the subsequent three sessions.
Indeed, Cheng’s second session-topping time was also faster than anyone else could muster over the two days.
Second fastest went to another Pro/Am Audi crew, the Phoenix Racing Asia-run, Team Audi R8 LMS GT3 Cup-entered car of Alexs Yoong and Au. The pair’s fastest time from Thursday afternoon moved them to within two tenths of Cheng, while another Absolute Audi – the OD Racing example driven by leading Silver Cup pair Mitch Gilbert and Aditya Patel – finished third overall after producing its best on Wednesday morning.
The first of two Ferraris was next up, Davide Rizzo and Anthony Liu’s BBT 488 GT3 pipping the similar Spirit of Race car driven by Massimiliano Wiser and Jiang Xin by little more than a tenth.
KCMG’s full-season Audi in the hands of Martin Rump and Sanghwi Rick Yoon made it five Pro/Am crews in the top-six, while GruppeM’s pair of Mercedes-AMG GT3s rounded out the first eight, Tim Sugden and Jules Szymkowiak’s #888 beating the sister car of Hunter Abbott and Raffaele Marciello.
Fastest of the Am/Am runners and a very impressive 12th overall was KCMG’s all-Japanese crew of Naoto Takeda and Takuya Shirasaka whose best of 2m05.851s was comfortably quicker than their nearest rivals Vincent Wong and Andrew Haryanto aboard their X-ONE Racing Lamborghini.
Meanwhile, HubAuto Racing’s Ringo Chong and Alan Yeo ended up quickest of the GT4 continent. Their best of 2m19.039s from Thursday’s final session helped them vault to the top of the class by seven tenths ahead of EKS Motorsports’ Eric Lo and Byron Tong.
Friday sees two hour-long free practice sessions take place ahead of official practice, qualifying and race one on Saturday. A single hour-long race rounds out the weekend on Sunday.