Rino Mastronardi and Rui Aguas claimed theirs, Spirit of Race’s and Ferrari’s first Blancpain GT Series Asia victories with a controlled drive in the first of this weekend’s 60-minute encounters at Chang International Circuit in Thailand earlier today.

The pair came home less than a second clear of Hunter Abbott and Maxi Buhk’s GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3, which closed in during the closing stages before being handed a 30-second post-race penalty for causing a collision on the opening lap. That promoted Silver Cup winners Marchy Lee and Shaun Thong to second after the Audi Hong Kong-entered R8 LMS GT3 sealed its second consecutive Series podium on the road after enjoying a tense battle with team-mates Alex Au and Alex Yoong.

The Am Cup spoils were decided on the final lap in favour of Takuya Shirasaka and Naoto Takeda, while Craft-Bamboo Racing’s Jean Marc Merlin and Frank Yu emerged victorious from a topsy-turvey GT4 race.

The afternoon began with pole-sitter Anthony Liu maintaining the lead from fellow front row-starter Mastronardi.

However, contact at Turn 3 between Abbott and Mitch Gilbert sent the latter’s Audi tumbling down the order and into the pits for repairs, and ultimately saw the #999 car drop to sixth in the final result. That altercation allowed Martin Kodric to gain three places from where he started and hold third ahead of Abbott, Aidan Read’s FFF Racing Team by ACM Lamborghini, Darryl O’Young and Marchy Lee.

Mastronardi continued to keep Liu honest over the opening 12 minutes before Terence Tse’s out-of-position TTR Team SARD Porsche GT4 collided with the BBT Ferrari at Turn 3, which immediately ended the latter’s race. Mastronardi was following closely and just snuck through unscathed, but Kodric was far less lucky when Tse made further, terminal contact with his Lamborghini while attempting to rejoin.

The subsequent Full Course Yellow was soon upgraded to a Safety Car in order to clear all three cars from the track, and when racing resumed just four minutes remained until the pit window opened.

Mastronardi’s lightning restart, coupled with a GT4 car between himself and his pursuers, meant the Italian was well up the road once the clock ticked past 25 minutes and the front-runners began to stop. However, Spirit of Race elected to continue circulating for another three laps before swapping Aguas in, by which time Buhk - who’d replaced Abbott - was just 1.5s behind.

The Mercedes-AMG loomed large in Aguas’ mirrors for a lap or so before the Portuguese driver slowly edged clear. At one point the lead was more than four seconds before his German pursuer closed in during the closing stages.

DRIVER QUOTES

Rui Aguas, #38 Spirit of Race Ferrari 488 GT3: “Maybe it looked easy but that was a hard race. It’s a shame the BBT boys went off but I’m very happy for us. Rino [Mastronardi] and the crew did a brilliant job and the car was great. We won by a small margin and the Mercedes-AMG was definitely catching up, but the chequered flag finished first today! I was very aware of the track limits here so didn’t want to push too hard in case we received a penalty.”

Marchy Lee, #5 Audi Hong Kong Audi R8 LMS GT3: “The race pace was very good and I also managed some overtaking moves, which isn’t easy here, so I was happy with those. But today the key was always going to be our pitstops, and the team did a very good job trying to estimate the best plan for overcoming our success penalty. That’s why we stayed out a few laps longer than the other front-runners. I must say Shaun [Thong] then did a very good job to keep Alex [Yoong] and Alessio [Picariello] behind him with the extra Silver Cup ballast onboard, which makes a difference under braking. I couldn’t ask for more today.”

Takuya Shirasaka, KCMG Audi R8 LMS GT3: “We’re very happy with today’s result - winning our second Blancpain GT Series Asia race in three starts is a great way to begin the season. Hopefully we can do the same tomorrow, although the competition is very tough here.”

This weekend’s second 60-minute Blancpain GT Series Asia race takes place at 13:30 local time tomorrow. Watch it live on Blancpain GT Series Asia’s Facebook page and website, as well as SRO’s GT World Youtube channel.

You can also re-live today’s race and qualifying action as-live on all of the platforms mentioned above.