Absolute Racing's Akash Nandy endured a challenging weekend in the GT World Challenge Asia by AWS at Fuji Speedway, but the No.29 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 driver left Japan still leading the Silver Cup standings.
In Saturday morning's first qualifying session, Nandy made full use of his Silver-rated driver status to secure a second-row starting position with a lap of 1:39.025, missing pole position by just 0.2 seconds.
Starting from fourth on the grid, Nandy made an excellent launch and quickly settled into fourth place overall, gradually building a gap over the chasing pack during the opening stint. However, as a solo-driver entry, his car was required to serve an additional seven-second success handicap during the mandatory pit stop, costing him several positions. Nandy maintained a consistent pace throughout the second half of the race to recover as much as possible, eventually finishing eighth overall and fifth in class, while minimising the points loss and retaining his lead in the Silver championship standings.
Nandy started the No.29 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 from 19th on the grid, in what proved to be a particularly difficult weekend for the Lamborghini package at Fuji. He maintained a consistent pace through the opening stages, steadily working his way forward to as high as 15th overall. However, his progress was interrupted by a drive-through penalty, and combined with the additional seven-second success handicap applied to solo-driver entries during the mandatory pit stop, his chances of fighting for a class podium were significantly affected.
Despite the setbacks, Nandy recovered to finish 17th overall and fifth in the Silver class, retaining his lead in the Silver drivers' championship.
"Fuji was undoubtedly our most challenging weekend of the season so far. We weren't quite where we wanted to be in terms of overall pace, but everyone at Absolute Racing worked incredibly hard throughout the weekend to improve the balance of the car and maximise what we had," said Nandy.
The Malaysian driver added: "To come away with points in both races was important, even if the results didn't fully reflect the effort from the team. Race 2 was particularly frustrating after receiving a drive-through penalty following an on-track incident, but that's all part of racing. I'd like to thank Provident and everyone at Absolute Racing — our engineers, mechanics and crew — for their relentless work behind the scenes. We'll take what we've learned from Fuji, reset, and come back stronger for Okayama."
The second half of the season kicks off at Okayama International Circuit, Japan, from 27–30 August.
