Brake problems have forced Australian Josh Hunt to withdraw his pole-sitting Mercedes-Benz SLS from the GT City Cup in Kuala Lumpur.
The Inifnity Racing team had leased the Mercedes for the event in a late deal brought together by sponsor Kurnia Insurans.
Although running untroubled during a shakedown at Sepang on Wedensday, Hunt has endured complete brake failures in both practice and qualifying.
The qualifying session saw Hunt score pole before a failure led to contact with the wall at Turn 2.
Hunt says the damage to the car could have been fixed, but it has been deemed unsafe to continue regardless.
“It’s not a heat related problem as such, it’s more of a terminal problem within the braking system,” Hunt told Speedcafe.com.
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“”We saw a little bit of it on Friday where the brake pedal was with, without warning, going straight to the floor. There was no brakes at all.
“Around this circuit I was lucky to get away with it on Friday, where I was still learning the track and braking fairly early.
“In qualifying I was pushing harder and we didn’t have that buffer, which meant we kissed the wall very lightly.
“We have all the parts there to fix the car but we can’t fix the brake problem.
“It’s not an easy decision when you’re starting from pole with a local sponsor on board, but we spent all night on the phone with HWA working through it and just can’t find a solution.
“I think we dodged a bullet yesterday with what happened in qualifying, it could have been a lot worse.
“We’ll just make sure we come back better and stronger next year, hopefully with our own car.”
Hunt’s withdrawal sees the Lamborghini Super Trofeos of Afiq Ikhawa Yazid and Naoki Yokomizo set to share the front-row for the race, which is the flagship of the inaugural KL event.
The only remaining GT3 specification entries – the Craft Bamboo Ford of Frank Yu and Infinity Ferrari 458 of Adrian d’Silva – will start off row two for the 40 minute encounter.
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