M-Motorsport’s Glen Wood made his China GT World-class debut at Beijing’s Goldenport Generator Park, joining a Xtreme Motorsport team in the #86 KTM X-Bow GT4 next to Hong Kong driver Chen Yinian, the couple claiming a pair of next placed finishes from your first two 60-minute races of the season.
Arriving in Beijing mid-week using M-Motorsport team boss Bieber McMillan, the team were eventually at the circuit and also underway with pre-event assessing, Wood admitting they enjoyed the 2.9-kilometre 12-turn Goldenport design despite limited comprehension of the Chinese circuit.
“It’s tight, it suits united states pretty well, but regrettably our BoP has practically crippled the car, we have been on the limit in all places to stay in touch when using the McLaren and the Astons,” Timber admitted.
With assistance from some sort of engineering team by Reiter Engineering HQ around Germany along with the awareness the Australian company brought to the program using their company impressive debuts at the Bathurst 12-Hour as well as the opening round with the 2017 Australian GT Trophy series, the infamous 2-litre turbo KTM quickly testified that itself as one to enjoy.
Qualifying netted a third placed start off for the #86 KTM with the overall qualifying time a variety of the two drivers, Wooden amongst the fastest GT4 drivers, whilst the relatively unsophisticated Yinian – a Drift star – was taking time to pay back into the X-Bow, but the team were ready to use of which to their advantage inside the two 60-minute races.
Off the beginning of the opening race Yinian settled into a comfortable cycle with the first stanza from the race ahead of the imperative pit stop full of safety car treatments.
That allowed the team to help pit within dazzling distance of the commanders, and whilst the pole-sitting McLaren acquired their star pass longer and increase significant ground within the second-placed KTM, Wood very quickly diminished the deficit his or her amateur driver leaped amazingly behind the wheel.
Within ten minutes with the chequered flag, Wood ended up being through to the lead and doing what he could to eke available a bigger advantage, yet within sight from the flag, a extravagant Lamborghini Super Trofeo in the GTC type suffered a ‘tank slapper’ in front of the KTM driver, leaving Wood completely avoidance mode is actually nowhere to go.
That helped the McLaren to close in, the twin-turbo V8 British equipment out-dragging the KTM on the run along the back straight to restore the top spot, along with from there Wood seemed to be forced to settle for second place.
“I couldn’t trust it,” Wood confessed afterwards. “I went allowed to remain, he [Lamborghini] went still left, I went correct, he went proper, I know it wasn’t intentional, because he had no idea I had been there, but that’s game over, everything that work to build a add the McLaren was gone. Anyways, we have a second qualifier an additional race, so let’s observe what we can do after that.”
Qualifying again saw your KTM second, although this occasion there was nothing isolating them from pole-sitters McLaren, a real difference between them after the bundled times were by way of, just five 1 hundredths of a second!
Yinian yet again started the KTM even though McLaren’s star Roelof Bruins was when driving and ahead of the pit stops, almost a good lap up on china KTM driver.
After the stop Wood charged, sealing in under the rear mentorship of as many GTC cars as he could so as to extract as much overall performance from the car as you can.
A late safety automotive intervention helped Wood’s advance and despite forcing at sometimes only two seconds a lap faster than the McLaren, the actual Australian driver fell short by just around four seconds at the flag.
“That was most I had, I just anticipated I’d had the opportunity to go a couple more runs around and return the favour from a short while ago,” Wood reported on the podium.
“We’ve had a fantastic weekend,” Justin McMillan added. “I’m inclined to bring my 3 rd KTM up here to become listed on the team, it’s been terrific. It’s nice for you to compete within a formidable field of cars, and to do something different to what we’ve used up years doing in Australia. China GT is just new, but you can observe the beginnings involving something huge, and so we’d dearly enjoy being a part of it, and tend to be already planning the attack on the McLaren designed for round two!
