Success for race ace Hunter Abbott in GT Series Asia

Maidenhead’s Hunter Abbott was crowned Blancpain GT Series Asia’s inaugural champion after finishing fourth in soaking wet final race in Zhejiang, China.

The former British Touring Cars Championship driver edged out his closest rivals by just a single point. Hunter is also this year’s GT3 Pro AM Cup winner and, completing the clean sweep, his GruppeM Racing team picked up the manufacturers title.

In treacherous, wet conditions, Hunter was pushed all the way by OD Racing’s Aditya Patel and Mitch Gilbert, who became the first crew to win both races over the same weekend.

The season finale, which started behind a safety car due to the wet conditions, could not have been more finely poised, with three drivers in contention for the GT3 inaugural title.

Gilbert lined up on pole, but had a 10- second penalty serve during his switch over with teammate Patel.

Abbott and Maxi Buhk, his GruppeM Racing teammate, started from fifth and had incurred a five-second penalty.

At the end of a difficult race, Patel took the chequered flag over two seconds clear of Devon Modell, but all eyes were on where Abbott could finish.

He rejoined in fifth and quickly moved up to fourth after overtaking Jeffrey Lee.

Chris Dreyspring’s advancing VSR Lamborghini caused a few concerns for the Maidenhead man when he drove into view, but he was never really under any threat and skilfully held on to take fourth place and the title by a point. 

Hunter said afterwards: “I can’t quite believe it, actually. Shanghai was very stressful and a total disaster with the two DNFs (did not finish).

“We had a healthy lead before that and I was pretty down about it. But we re-focused ourselves before coming here in the hope of making up the points deficit, which thankfully we were able to do.

“I must thank the team who have been fantastic all year, as well as Maxi [Buhk] who’s obviously played a major role, but also Maxi Goetz and Raffaele Marciello who filled in and helped us score important points when Maxi was unable to race.

“It’s been a great year and the racing’s been fantastic. Hopefully we can do it all over again in 2018.”