Tsugio Matsuda gave KCMG their first pole position of the year in the final round of the Asian Le Mans Series at the 3 Hours of Sepang.
Lapping the Malaysian GP venue in 1:57.579 in the team’s Morgan-Nissan Matsuda was just three tenths faster than Ho–Ping Tung in OAK Racing’s Judd powered Morgan LMP2 chassis with Richard Bradley only a further 0.063 behind for Craft Racing to complete a close session for the premier class in the series. KCMG hold the championship lead, and with have one hand on the prize – an invitation to the 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The OAK Racing team have to win the race to take the title from their rivals, a second place in tomorrow’s race – even behind Craft Racing’s Oreca 03 – still allows KCMG to take the title with a third place finish in the class.
Toni Vilander – with Clearwater Racing – was fastest in the GTC class, and fourth fastest overall albeit a full eight seconds off the pace of the LMP2 runners. Behind the Ferrari man, who’s pole lap stopped the clock at 2:05.572 Craft Racing AMR’s pair of GT3 Vantages were second and third in class, Tomonobu Fujii in the #009 ahead of Stefan Mucke in the #007.
The #007, which Mucke share with Keita Sawa will battle the #91 AAI–RSTRADA BMW Z4 GT3 of Takeshi Tsuchiya, Jun San Chen and Tatsuya Tanigawa for the Le Mans invitation given to the GTC class winners.
Is the AsLMS the GTC class is split into Pro and Am – much like the GTE class of the FIA World Endurance Championship. Giorgio Sanna set the fastest time of the Am entries with a lap of 2:10.517 to top the three car – all Lamborghini Gallado class.
With a best time of 2:08.241 Naoki Yokomizo won GTE pole in the Ferrari 458 of Team Taisan Ken Endless by default as Marco Seefried in the Porsche entered by AAI-RSTRADA were kept out of the session with a technical issue.
