After claiming some impressive results across the region over the last 18-months, the Nexus Infinity Team made a commitment to the revitalised Asian Le Mans Series to enter the GT category of the emerging endurance series, which kicked off at the iconic Fuji International Speedway alongside the popular World Endurance Championship.

Utilising the talents of former open-wheel star and dual Sepang 12-Hour race winner Dominic Ang, and experienced Australian international Josh Hunt who was the GT-category pole-sitter during the recent Kuala Lumpur Street Race, the CQ Loh managed team entered their 2013 Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 which has served them so well across the circuits of Asia over the last three seasons.

Against a string of prototype LMP2 and LMP3 cars, and competing alongside some of the region’s best GT3 competitors, the Nexus Infinity Team impressed during practice, with both Hunt – who had never been to Fuji before – and the experienced Ang – who had been to Fuji on a number of occasions – well within reach of the leading GT contenders.

“This would have to be one of the best tracks I’ve ever driven on,” Hunt admitted with a broad smile after practice. “I love everything about it. It’s fast – we’re doing 281kph at the end of the 1.5-kilometre long main straight – there’s a lot of high speed stuff, but there’s also a lot of technique involved, especially in sector three, which is where I need to sharpen up.

“The race is two hours long, and a lot can happen in that time. We’ve got a strategy for the race, and we know which way we want to go, but we’re pretty lucky that Dom [Ang] and I are so closely matched on times, so I think as a package for the race, we’re looking pretty good.”

For Ang, the 2011 Super Taikyu champion, Fuji presented few surprises, the Malaysian having competed on the iconic 4.563-kilometre, 16-turn venue a number of times over the years, so it was little surprise he set the fastest time of the pair, although he was happy to see that Hunt was so closely matched on times given the pair had never driven together previously.

“This is my first time driving alongside Josh, but we’re very closely matched on speed which is very good for an endurance race like this, it will definitely help in the overall race,” Ang admitted.

“We’re top four pace, but it will depend on how much speed we can find ahead of qualifying as to whether we’ll make the podium, there’s some very competitive cars here in the GT class this weekend.”

Hunt – an experienced former international karter and the Energy Corse Asia team principal – echoed the views of his team-mate, who as a result of his pace will qualify the gorgeous grey and blue #27 Ferrari.

“Dominic will qualify the car, he was quicker than me in that second session, and we agreed that the faster driver qualifies, then we’ll make a race plan from there,” Hunt confirmed.

“We were really happy with the morning pace against teams that threw new tyres at their cars, and I did the time on 25-lap old tyres, but as a result we probably went a little bit the wrong way in practice two, but now we have the data to support the pace of the car, and I think we can bring it back to where we want it to be ahead of qualifying.

“It’s pretty much down to car compliance in the final sector of the lap which is a sequence of mid-high speed corners that set you up for the run onto the main straight. If we can make the car a little better through there, and I can find some additional speed, we’ll be right in the mix.”

For team-boss CQ Loh, whilst no stranger to GT competition or endurance races, the new-look Asian Le Mans Series presented a number of new challenges, not the least of which was a number of new team members.

“Certainly the event, the competition and extracting the maximum from the car is no great challenge, we’re used to that with the events we’ve contested over the last three seasons, but we have a number of new members in the team, and it’s just a matter of getting them into the structure of the Infinity Race Engineering team,” he explained.

“We’re all certainly gelling as a group, but there’s no substitute for standing side-by-side in the field of battle to prepare you for what’s to come in endurance racing, because you can guarantee there will always be a surprise in store, it’s just a matter of how well you deal with it, but certainly we’re ready, and we’re excited to be a part of what is shaping up to be a terrific championship.”

With practice now completed, the team’s focus turns to the single 30-minute qualifying session late on Saturday morning, and the all-important season-opener scheduled for 3:00pm, a race that is certain to finish in the twilight.