China GT moves forward aiming for local GP
The China GT Championship has finally moved forward for this season with the first round of the championship taking place at the Ningbo International Circuit in Zhejiang province last weekend.
Severely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions and the subsequent economic crisis, the 2022 China GT Championship is now just a shadow of its former self with only 10 cars composing this year’s grid, distributed in three different categories.
Still, the category dedicated to GT3 specification cars is the most popular one with a total of five cars from four different brands listed to race.
Very popular in the past few years, was also the GT4 category which is now only represented by two cars, while the final three spots are occupied by cars from the GTC category, a racing class characterized by presenting vehicles with only “minor” transformations from the original production vehicle and hence, less expensive to run but also less performant.
The championship this year includes only six rounds with the last one to take place in Macau in November, as part of the Macau Grand Prix event.
After Round 1, racers and teams are preparing for a quadruple-head to take place on the first weekend of September, which will be also raced at Ningbo Circuit.
In late September, the championship is expected to finally move out of Zhejiang to Fujian’s Pingtan Island.
Before heading finally to Macau, the GT China Championship will have a final round at the neighboring city of Zhuhai, scheduled for the first weekend of November.
Familiar faces at the China GT
Although the championship has had better days, among the names that comprise the grid for this year’s championship are several well-known names from Macau and Guia Circuit, including the local and two-time Formula 4 race winner Charles Leong.
Leong made his first appearance driving a GT category car at the driving wheel of a Ferrari 488 GT3 from the Harmony Racing team.
The young Macau driver had a great debut finishing second in Saturday’s Race 1 and in the top spot in Race 2, held on Sunday afternoon.
Battling with Leong and his teammate David Chen were also two usual competitors at Guia Circuit, Cheng Congfu, and Chris Chia, at the wheel of an Audi R8 GT3 Evo2 from FAW Audi Racing Team.
