By Johan Laubscher
The first of two qualifying sessions for the Macau GT Cup took place on Friday afternoon. The large GT Cup field, including the seven Audi R8 LMS and ultra entries, took to the track at 13h10 local time.
Practice had shown close times between the front runners and very fast times were expected from qualifying. The Audi race experience duo of Edoardo Mortara and Laurens Vanthoor had placed third and second respectively during the Free practice session on Thursday.
Friday’s thirty minute qualifying session saw a tight battle at the front with the times coming down throughout the session. By the end of the proceedings the top three had all dropped below the 2:20.000 barrier.
It was again a case of traffic and timing during this qualifying session. Edoardo Mortara found a clear lap and set a blistering time to secure provisional pole position, lowering the qualifying lap record from 2:18.651 (2013 Maro Engel) to a 2:18.230. He was half a second clear of the rest of the field.
His teammate, Laurens Vanthoor, set the fourth fastest time in the #2 Audi R8 LMS ultra. The Audi race experience pairing were split by Earl Bamber in the #72 Porsche and Maro Engel in the #5 Mercedes-Benz.
Adderly Fong again led the Absolute Racing run Audi entries by taking tenth position on the grid with the #17 Audi R8 LMS ultra. Philip Ma (Audi #98) qualified in twentieth, ahead of Jeffrey Lee (Audi #7) in twenty-first. Jacky Yeung (Audi #77) was in thirtieth and Mak Hing Tak (Audi #68) unfortunately did not set a lap time during qualifying.
The second qualifying session will be taking place on Saturday, followed by the Macau GT Cup race on Sunday morning.
We wish the best of luck to the Audi teams and drivers.
Photo credit: AFOS
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