Absolute's championship lead slashed to four points
5ZIGEN wins Silver; KRC completes Silver-Am double; Am victory for Climax
Lu Wei’s GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS title assault is back on track after the Origine Porsche he shares with Laurin Heinrich triumphed in Race 2 at Fuji.
Doing so also moved him one win clear of compatriot Anthony Liu at the top of the championship’s victory list. However, it’s the significantly reduced four-point deficit to Huang Ruohan and Alessandro Ghiretti that will likely please the eight-time race winner most of all.
The previous seven were achieved with #4 and a purple livery. Both were ditched before Fuji – a circuit where Origine 911s have won for the past two seasons – in the hope a new look would help turn the tide in the title race. Today’s victory and third place yesterday suggest this won’t be the final outing for #11 or ‘Black Beauty’.
Liu and his Phantom co-driver Dorian Boccolacci fought through from 15th on the grid to finish second, which also helped reduce the former’s points deficit to eight, while KRC’s pole-sitting BMW shared by Ruan Cunfan and Max Hesse beat 5ZIGEN’s Silver class-winning Nissan to the final overall podium spot by just 0.004s.
Brian Lee and Max Oosten took KRC’s other M4 GT3 to its second Silver-Am victory of the weekend, and Am honours went to the Climax pair of Zhou Bi Huang and Setiawan Santoso.
ORIGINE BACK IN BLACK
Lu is the first driver to win twice this season following victory alongside Alessio Picariello at Sepang. However, their tricky outing at Mandalika last time out resulted in a 34-point deficit heading into Fuji where third place in Race 1 represented an upturn in fortunes.
It also resulted in a five-second success penalty that would, in theory, prevent the car from winning today.
Heinrich started third but picked off Tom Sargent on the opening lap before tracking pole man Hesse until an opportunity arose at the final corner halfway through the opening stint. The Porsche successfully dived down the inside but initially struggled for traction, allowing both the BMW and Brendon Leitch – up two places from fifth – to draw alongside. Apex Predator Harmony’s Ferrari initially won a three-wide drag race down the start/finish straight before Heinrich found a way back past and into the lead two laps later.
He spent the next 15 minutes edging clear but only extended the lead to beyond five seconds thanks to a fabulous in-lap.
Lu duly emerged with the Porsche’s lead intact before building an advantage of around 10 seconds back to Leitch’s co-driver Song Jiajun whose attention rapidly switched to the fast-approaching Liu. His co-driver Boccolacci picked up six places in the opening stint before several were gained in the pits, and then three more on track by the 2023 champion. A quarter of the race remained when he swept past the iridescent Ferrari, but that wasn’t enough time to catch Lu who took the chequered flag 6.7s clear.
Ruan also passed Song before coming under attack from two rapidly advancing Silver entries. Takayuki Aoki made up 17 positions in Saturday’s opening stint and looked odds-on to pass the BMW as Race 2 ticked towards its conclusion. But Ruan held firm with some fine defensive driving before winning the front-engine duel via a photo finish.
Adderly Fong (33R Harmony Racing) overcame the extra solo pitstop time to finish right behind 5ZIGEN’s Aoki and Atsushi Miyake.
Sixth went to Absolute’s championship leaders Huang and Ghiretti who had a low-key weekend by their high standards set at the start of 2026. But they will at least head into the second half of 2026 at Okayama without a success penalty – unlike their nearest rivals Lu and Liu.
10 additional seconds for finishing as runners up yesterday restricted LM Corsa’s Shigekazu Wakisaka and Ryo Ogawa to seventh, one place ahead of the Apex Predator Harmony Ferrari that slipped down the order after the pitstops.
The top 10 was completed by yesterday’s leading Silver contenders. Yu Kuai and Cheng Congfu battled back from an early off to finish ninth in their FAW Audi Sport Asia Team Phantom R8, while Race 1’s overall winners David Chen Weian and Liu Kaishun (Harmony) overcame 26 seconds of success and class penalties to round out the overall points scorers.
GT World Challenge Asia now moves on to another Japanese venue, Okayama, for the start of this year’s championship run-in. The former grand prix venue hosts Rounds 7 and 8 on August 27-30 before two events in China complete the campaign.
