At the Suzuka 10-Hour race in Japan, the #7 Porsche 911 GT3 R fielded by D’station Racing driven by Earl Bamber (New Zealand), Sven Müller (Germany) and Tomonobu Fujii from Japan, retired after around two and a half hours after losing drive.
In the Pro-Am category for professional and amateur drivers, both Porsche 911 GT3 R completed the full ten-hour distance. Driving for Black Swan Racing, Tim Pappas, Jeroen Bleekemolen and Marc Miller scored fourth in their class. Like Manthey-Racing, the American squad contests all rounds of this year’s Intercontinental GT Challenge. In the second entry (No. 77) of the D’station team, Satoshi Hoshino, Tsubasa Kondo and Jono Lester finished ninth in the Pro-Am class.
Craft-Bamboo Racing and Manthey-Racing finished the ten-hour race in Suzuka on positions eleven and twelve with the Porsche 911 GT3 R. Kévin Estre (France), Laurens Vanthoor (Belgium) and Mathieu Jaminet (France) crossed the finish line at round three of the Intercontinental GT Challenge in Japan directly in front of Romain Dumas, Frédéric Makowiecki (both France) and Dirk Werner (Germany). Due to a late spin, the Manthey car narrowly missed out on a top ten spot and finished behind the Craft-Bamboo entry.
Taking up the race from 17th on the grid, Porsche works drivers Estre and Vanthoor with Porsche Young Professional Mathieu Jaminet worked their way up the field over the distance. After 275 laps, Vanthoor swept over the finish line just eight seconds ahead of Werner. The German and his works driver teammates Dumas and Makowiecki left their mark in qualifying with sixth place. The race on the 5.807-kilometre Suzuka Circuit in the Mie Prefecture was marked by extreme humidity and high temperatures reaching 35 degrees Celsius. Of the 35 vehicles to contest the race, 23 were driven exclusively by professional drivers.
The fourth and final round of the 2018 Intercontinental GT Challenge takes place on 28 October at the Laguna Seca Raceway in California (USA).
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