Australian GT driver Josh Hunt emerged victorious in the third round of the Asian Le Mans Series.
The Gold Coast driver teamed up with Dominic Ang to score a class victory behind the wheel of the Nexus Infinity Ferrari 458 GT3 in the three hour endurance at Thailand’s Chang circuit.
The pair finished the race 7.6 seconds ahead of the #5 Absolute Racing Audi, driven by Jeffrey Lee, Alessio Picariello and Adderly Fong, who recovered from dropping to as a low as seventh at the start.
“It was long. I double stinted towards the end, so I was close to two hours in the car,” said Hunt.
“Fortunately, we got that safety car in the middle, which really helped us. We had a nice gap going into it, but it did change our strategy, because we were going to double-stint tyres, so it gave us nice fresh tyres for the end.
“It was a bit of a mystery what our pace was going to be like, because the guys from Absolute Racing with their new Audi have been exceptionally fast this weekend, and also the guys in the BMW.
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“It was nice to be able to do what we did and pull that 8 second gap, and prove we’ve come a long way in this series and hopefully we can stay there.”
Third place was claimed by the #91 Team AAI BMW Z4 GT3 of Junsan Chen, Nobuteru Tanaguchi and Ollie Millroy.
There was further success for Melbourne driver Dean Kousoumidis and his Australian-based Brit James Winslow with the duo finishing the race second overall in their Algarve Pro Racing prototype.
After starting from second on the grid, the entry had to fight back from a stop and go penalty to finish 30 seconds behind overall winners Eurasia Motosport featuring Sean Geleal and F3 star Antonio Giovinazzi.
“I hopped in second. There weren’t any issues, the car performed beautifully,” said Koutsoumidis.
“We got really hooked up once it got light. We didn’t have any problems, apart from me speeding in the pit lane, which gave us a penalty.
“That was my gift to the team. Apart from that, the car was wonderful and the team did a great job. I’m still learning and I can’t wait for the next one.”
After starting from second on the grid the entry had to fight back from a stop and go penalty to finish 30 seconds behind overall winners Eurasia Motosport featuring Sean Geleal and F3 star Antonio Giovinazzi.
Swiss squad Race Performance secured the final spot on the podium with Oliver Webb and Nicolas Leutwiler.
The Asian Le Mans Series will head to Malaysia’s Sepang circuit for the final round on January 22.
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