Imperatori surprises beating quartet of Champions, for now

Alexandre Imperatori

The talent of Swiss-born Hong Kong resident Alexandre Imperatori has been well-known for many years as is his experience of the Guia circuit. Still, not many would have guessed that Imperatori would come out on top after the first two practice sessions of the Macau GT Cup race.

Placing fourth in the first session with the best time of 2:20.911, Imperatori surprised everyone by leading the timesheet after the second session that took place yesterday evening.

The Toro Racing driver, at the wheel of a Porsche 911 GT3 R clocked a 2:18.760 on the last of nine laps during the FP2, beating the until-then leader of the timesheets Edoardo Mortara by 0.031 of a second.

Mortara, back at the wheel of an Audi, had dominated the earlier session with the best time of 2:19.841 and although he also improved on the FP2 by over 1 second, it was not enough to beat Imperatori on the first day.

Behind this duo came three Mercedes-AMG GT3s driven by Maro Engel, Raffaele Marciello, and Darryl O’Young respectively. They completed the top 5, with Imperatori leading the quartet of former champions of this race.

Of note is that, between the top 5, there is a gap of less than 1 second with O’Young currently within 0.977 of a second of Imperatori’s best time.

More close action is expected today when the GT3 cars go on the track to contest the two qualifying sessions.

The first is scheduled to start at 10:35 a.m. while the last will be closing the program Friday with an expected starting time of 4:30 p.m.