The Round 8 of the GT Asia Series also took place as a support race during the Malaysian Super Series Round 4 weekend, and it had definitely lifted up the atmosphere of the already exciting and adrenaline-filled weekend. And basking in the limelight was 20-year-old Thailand driver Pasin Lathouras as he sprinted through the 23-lap race to claim his second win of the weekend in Malaysia.
Making his way to the top in a Ferrari 458 Italia GT3, Lathouras kept his sights locked on to pole sitter Li Zhi Cong in the Porsche 997 GT3 R. And as soon as he saw the opening while passing through turn 11, Lathouras took the inside line and snatched the lead. It was then he began stretching the lead in preparation of the mandatory pit stop to allow the 15-second Compensation Time added to his stop as result of his win the day before.
“I knew I have the 15 seconds time added penalty in the pits from the win yesterday, so I had to get that time on the track. I tried my best to overtake Li as quickly as I could and at some point I saw that he was a bit slower at the corners and I managed to overtake him at Turn 11. From there I just maintained my pace and to keep the car to the end of the race”, said Lathouras.
Jeffrey Lee and Marchy Lee from Team R8 LMS Ultra took home the second place in the race, but it was no walk in the park for them. Although starting the race in the front row, they were unable to fend off the speedy Lathouras in the Ferrari and also had to defend their position from the rapidly charging Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 driven by Frank Yu and Mok Weng Sun in the chrome McLaren MP4-12C GT3.
“At the start, I tried to hold off the Ferrari for a little bit but the car was just too quick. I managed to have a nice fight with Frank and Weng, but when they passed I tried to just keep up with the guys so that Marchy did not have to drive hard to catch up”, said Jeffrey.
“In the end, we as a team had a close fight with the Aston today and as for the Ferrari, Pasin did a really good job, there was no way we could challenge him. I would like to thank Audi China and my teammate Jeffrey because he performed really well. It was a good weekend”, added Marchy.
Third place goes to the Craft Racing AMR duo of Frank Yu and Darryl O’Young, where we saw a fierce battle happening between Yu, Jeffrey and Mok throughout the first stint of the race. By the time the wheels were passed to O’Young, the intensity had pretty much toned down, but still maintained the fast pace to claim third for the team.
“It was alright in the beginning but then it started to get difficult as I started the race with my race set of tyres from yesterday as I wanted to give the new set to Darryl so he could push”, said Yu.
