Shanghai FP2: Bastian leads GruppeM Mercedes-AMG one-two

> Team Studie top GT4
> Result: FP2

GruppeM Racing’s championship-leading Mercedes-AMGs finished one-two in second practice at Shanghai earlier this afternoon thanks to Nico Bastian and Raffaele Marciello.

Anstone Racing’s stranded Mercedes-AMG brought the session to a close with 10 of the scheduled 45 minutes remaining to ensure Bastian and his Drivers’ Championship-leading team-mate Patric Niederhauser remained unchallenged over the closing stages.

The #999 entry finished 0.472s clear of the sister car Marciello shares with leading Am Alexander Mattschull after setting a best of 2m06.410. That was almost a second faster than the day’s opening session and a similar amount clear of Absolute Racing’s #3 Audi shared by Franky Cheng and Martin Rump who again finished third overall.

It was the first of three R8 LMS GT3s to finish inside the top-five after OD Racing’s Mitch Gilbert and Aditya Patel plus Absolute’s Adderly Fong and Andrew Kim lapped just 0.010s apart.

Craft-Bamboo Racing’s #911 Porsche was next up in the hands of Sandy Stuvik and Shae Davies while China GT Championship front-runners JR-M followed up their second place in FP1 with seventh in the second session. HubAuto Corsa’s Morris Chen and Tim Slade completed the top-eight aboard their Ferrari.

GruppeM and BMW Team Studie once again went head-to-head in GT4, and this time it was Sunako Jukuchou and Takayuki Kinoshita who prevailed by 1.1s over championship leader Reinhold Renger. TTR Team SARD’s Porsche finished third.

Final practice begins at 08:20 tomorrow morning ahead of qualifying and the weekend’s first 60-minute race.