Absolute Racing Secures Pro-Am Podium on the Streets of Beijing

Absolute Racing’s Wang Zhongwei and Patrick Pilet claimed third in the Pro-Am class at the GT World Challenge Asia by AWS season finale, held at Beijing Street Circuit in Beijing E-Town, China.

Both Absolute Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R (Type 992) entries appeared in striking new liveries for the season finale. In the No. 321 car, Daniel Lu was joined by his fourth different teammate of the year, series newcomer Nazim Azman, with the pairing stepping up to the highly competitive Silver class. Much to the delight of fans, the No. 321 featured the iconic yellow Porsche livery from Le Mans 1985 – the same design that adorned Absolute Racing’s successful Intercontinental GT Challenge Suzuka 1000km campaign last month.

To make the weekend even more special for fans and collectors of Almost Real scale models, the No. 911 car of Wang Zhongwei and Patrick Pilet ran in a distinctive blue-and-white livery inspired by the legendary Porsche factory team colours of the 1980s.

Due to changes to the timetable on Friday, both qualifying sessions took place on Saturday, with the two races condensed into Sunday’s schedule on the 4.9-kilometre, eight-turn temporary circuit laid out on public roads and highways.

On Saturday morning, Patrick Pilet topped the Pre-Qualifying session on his final flying lap. His 1m44.315s effort in the No. 911 Porsche was just 0.01s ahead of second place and seven hundredths clear of third, in a fiercely close session where the leading drivers were separated by mere fractions on a circuit new to everyone.

Making only his second appearance in a GT3 car – and his first in the 911 GT3 R (Type 992) – 24-year-old Azman delivered an impressive performance in Q1, climbing to fifth overall and second in the Silver class in the closing moments. The Malaysian was later promoted to fourth on the grid for the opening race of the weekend. Meanwhile, young Chinese driver Lu faced intense competition from factory-backed European drivers in Q2 but remained composed, improving his time to finish third in the Silver class and rounding off a strong qualifying showing for the pair.

Opting to avoid unnecessary risks, Wang built up his pace steadily in tricky conditions, placing the No. 911 Porsche tenth in the highly competitive Pro-Am class. In Q2, Pilet produced another strong performance, surging to the top of the timesheets in the closing stages and confirming the team’s excellent form around the Yizhuang street circuit. His lap secured fourth on the grid for the final race of the season.

Sunday’s races were nothing short of chaotic at the Beijing street circuit. In the opening race, Nazim Azman and Daniel Lu climbed through the field to take the lead in the Silver class and ran third overall for much of the race. Unfortunately, with just two laps remaining, an accident while Lu was battling for position ended the young duo’s hopes of securing a well-deserved result.

With 30,000 spectators filling the grandstands — the largest crowd ever recorded for a GT World Challenge Asia round — Race 2 once again showed the strong pace of the No. 321 Porsche in the Silver class. Despite their strong pace, Azman clipped the wall at Turn 11 on the final lap of the Safety Car period, damaging the rim. An additional pit stop to replace the tyre meant the Malaysian–Chinese duo had to settle for fourth place once again.

In the No. 911 car, Wang and Pilet delivered an outstanding performance in Race 1, steadily climbing through the field from P21 on the grid to finish fifth overall and third in the Pro-Am class.

Race 2, however, didn’t go the way of the No. 911 crew. Pilet was unable to hold onto fourth place at the start but managed to regain the position by the end of his stint. All cars then pitted under a Safety Car triggered by an incident at Turn 1 with 22 minutes remaining. The extended pit stop cost the team a few positions, and the race ultimately ended prematurely under caution.

Absolute Racing’s campaign continues next month as Tempo by Absolute Racing fields two Porsche 911 GT3 R (Type 992) machines in the prestigious Macau GT Cup – FIA GT World Cup, taking place on the legendary streets of Macau from 13 to 16 November.

It’s been a tough season, but once again this weekend in Beijing — just like at the Suzuka 1000km — we’ve shown we’ve got what it takes to battle for podiums and victories with our Porsche cars. Massive congratulations to the entire team and all our drivers for their relentless effort and spirit this season. We are now looking forward to the Macau Grand Prix.

It was a bit of a disappointing weekend, even though we showed good pace throughout the event, but I think in the end luck wasn’t on our side. It’s been a solid first full season in GT World Challenge Asia where I’ve learnt a lot.

Overall, I think it was a very unlucky weekend. We led both races, so to DNF like this is really unfortunate. But, you know, we take what we can and just move on to the next one. The only positive is that we had really good pace, and we’ve shown that in the Silver class we can definitely fight. It is what it is — we just look forward to the next one.

This season got off to a fairly unlucky start, but gradually throughout the year our form and performance improved. In the end, I’m pleased with the results this weekend, especially during the opener when we came through to take fifth overall.

It was an exciting weekend and the team did an excellent job throughout, especially in the opener as we came from P21 to finishing third in class. It was great to work with the Absolute Racing crew throughout the 2025 campaign.