In the GT World Challenge Asia season opener, His Highness Prince Jefri Ibrahim and Alexander Sims finished fourth on Saturday and claimed outright victory on Sunday.
The Malaysian team formally split with Triple Eight after the 2024 season, having raced a pair of Mercedes-AMG GT3 cars across Asia for several years.
Although the JMR team stands on its own two feet with Corvette and a couple of Z06 GT3.R machines, the squad still features a slew of Triple Eight staffers.
Since leaving Australia to join Shane van Gisbergen in the United States, Jess has joined the General Motors fold in its motorsport division.
Roland has been busy in Supercars too in the process of General Motors choosing its homologation partner.
Ibrahim and Sims were third after the mid-race pit stops in race two but were promoted to the lead when the top two contenders collided.
In the Origine Porsche 911 GT3, Lu Wei made contact at Turn 2 with the Climax Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Mike Zhou and took them both out of contention.
Lu was handed a drive-through penalty while Zhou spun out.
The victory also came in front of His Majesty Sultan Ibrahim, King of Malaysia and Her Majesty Raja Zarith Sofiah, Queen of Malaysia.
“There’s no better way to start the championship than to win my home race in front of my home crowd,” said Prince Jefri Ibrahim.
“This is a feeling I will never forget and I’m so glad my parents were there to watch.
“This was a debut race for the Corvette and I’m so proud of the team for the hard work they’ve done over the past few months.
“It’s been very rewarding and I want to give a big thank-you to my parents for their support, to our family, friends, sponsors, supporters, and everyone else.”
His Highness Prince Abu Bakar Ibrahim and Aussie Jordan Love had a tough weekend on the whole.
They were caught up in a Lap 1 crash on Saturday before recovering to 11th but failed to finish Sunday’s race after Love suffered rear-end damage to his left rear wheel in an ugly, high-speed clash.
🟡 FULL COURSE YELLOW 🟡
Love had nowhere to go!
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“While it was a difficult weekend for us, I’m so pleased for the guys on the other side of the garage and I offer a huge congratulations to them,” said Love.
“Sepang is a special place for the team it means a lot for everyone involved.
“Yesterday, the team did a great job to get the 66 car fixed and back on track, but unfortunately we experienced some more bad luck today.”
Australia’s Ben Porter and Andrew Macpherson finished ninth and 23rd across the two races.
Walkinshaw Andretti United co-driver Jayden Ojeda was 19th in race one with Qi Cao before claiming second overall in race two for Craft-Bamboo Racing.
GT World Challenge Asia returns on May 9-11 at Mandalika.
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