1. Liu/Rizzo do it again in South Korea
The Anthony Liu/Davide Rizzo combination surprised the entire GT Asia Series field at Korea International in 2014, taking victory in both races during the Series first ever visit to South Korea, the rookies surprising everyone with their speed. Despite Liu taking the fight all the way down to the wire in Macau at seasons end, everyone seemed surprised to see them dish out another win in South Korea, to leave the opening event of the 2015 season with a handy points lead, whilst pre-season favourites Clearwater Racing and Craft-Bamboo all suffered problems across the weekend.
2. Clearwater Racing ‘on fire’ in Okayama
Reigning GT Asia Series champion Mok Weng Sun said after Okayama that his season was done despite the services of factory WEC stars James Calado, Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander. Ultimately he was right, the catalyst for his comments was the fuel fire in the roll-around lap for round three at Okayama which ended their weekend on the spot and destroyed the #1 car’s chances of claiming another title. The damage to the car was significant, with the hard-working Clearwater Racing team rebuilding the rear of the car in the three-week break between Okayama and Fuji.
3. FFF Racing McLaren takes maiden victory at Okayama
Fu Songyang and Andrea Caldarelli unveiled a three-car McLaren 650S GT3 team ahead of the 2015 season with an impressive driver lineup that included former McLaren GT Asia Series campaigner Hiroshi Hamaguchi, former Formula One driver Tonio Liuzzi, and 2014 GT Asia Series front-runners Jiang Xin and Max Wiser. The trio of black FFF Racing Team by ACM McLaren’s looked fantastic on track and they showed they would be competitive with some solid results at South Korea before an emphatic victory by Hamaguchi and Liuzzi at Okayama in just their third event of the season.
4. An emotional Keita Sawa wins at home
After assisting good friend Mok Weng Sun to his third GT Asia Series crown in 2014, experienced Asian GT campaigner Keita Sawa joined the all new Bentley Team Absolute operation for the new season. Paired with rising star Adderly Fong in the #8 Bentley Continental GT3, the duo were unsurprisingly quick, claiming their first podium in South Korea. In Japan though, the Sawa/Fong combination was unstoppable claiming wins in both Okayama and Fuji in front of Sawa’s home fans, the emotional Japanese veteran having risen to the occasion with two of the best drives of his life.
12-months prior to the Shanghai round of the 2015 series, Clearwater Racing’s Hiroshi Hamaguchi suffered the biggest crash of his career during final practice at Shanghai, destroying the points leading McLaren MP4-12C and effectively ending his title challenge.
Step forward 12-months, and reigning Australian GT Trophy Class (GTM) champion Rod Salmon suffered a similar fate in the FFF Racing Team by ACM McLaren 650S GT3 during race one [round eight] on the run down to turn one.
Suffering an intermittent electrical issue, the Australian was focused on resetting systems and getting the car sorted on the radio with his engineer when GTM class front-runner Kenneth Lim ranged up on the outside of the ailing McLaren heading into the braking zone at the end of the main straight. With limited visibility thanks to a broken side mirror, and unaware the Ferrari was beside him, Salmon moved across to take the racing line and just clipped the front of Lim, sending him sideways across the track and hard into the inside barrier.
The impact tore wheels off the car and pushed the front almost all the way to the windscreen, but incredibly – just as Hamaguchi had done 12-months prior – Salmon popped the door and walked away from the smoking McLaren uninjured, much to the relief of a number of drivers who had witnessed the incident.
Heading into the Shanghai round of the 2015 series, Bentley Team Absolute drivers Keita Sawa and Adderly Fong held the championship lead by three points over Anthony Liu and Davide Rizzo, with Craft-Bamboo Racing’s Darryl O’Young just two points further back. By the close of the Shanghai round, O’Young emerged as the points leader, just four points up on the Bentley duo, with the BBT Ferrari pair just hanging on, 16 points back from the lead.
With the title within reach, O’Young needed a consistent run at Buriram during the series’ first ever visit to Thailand, and whilst practice looked strong, disaster struck in opening qualifying with O’Young making contact with GTM class title contender Dylan Derdaele early in the session, forcing the #99 VLT Aston Martin into the gravel with damage to the rear of the car.
With just a ten-minute break between sessions, it looked as if the car would be too badly damaged to get O’Young’s team-mate Daniel Lloyd out during Q2 to record a time, but that’s exactly what the experienced Craft-Bamboo team did, Lloyd with no time to get temperature into the tyres charging out pit lane with just minutes remaining to get one single flying lap, the Englishman putting it to good use to grab a front row start.
Starting from rear-of-field in race one, O’Young managed to avoid early contact to work his way forward early, before Lloyd continued the good work to claim fourth at the flag.