ASLMS Zhuhai Resources
- Official Website
- Race Results
- Championship Standings
- Race Report
- ASLMS Zhuhai Full Race Video
- ASLMS News
- ASLMS tRL TV Videos
» After initial experiments last season, Asian Le Mans Series has listened to fans and setup full streaming coverage for the 2017/2018 season. The 4 Hours of Zhuhai included full live coverage of qualifying and race, with both sessions commentated on by Graham Goodwin and Jeevan Selvanathan.
» The coverage itself did have some teething issues, but as a first attempt it was a huge success. Higher image quality and more complete highlight and replay packages during the race would be the icing on the cake for the coverage.
» Unfortunately, the opening round had a much lower car count than expected. Keep an eye out for this rising for future races.
» The series has increased importance for this season, as there are now a potential 4 Le Mans invitations to be given out to AsLMS competitors. 1 for winning LMP2, 1 for winning LMP3, 1 for winning GT and potentially a second for runner up in GT.
» Unfortunately the series suffered lower entries than what was expected. 6 in LMP2, 5 in LMP3 and 3 in GT3 – 14 overall. Given the popularity of LMP3 and GT3 classes in Asia, it’s worth asking if the ACO can do more to attract entries. SRO launched Blancpain GT Series Asia to instant success, and that success has hurt initial Asian Le Mans Series entries. Asian Le Mans Series does have the advantage of a Le Mans invitation, but this clearly wasn’t enough for many teams. The ACO aren’t necessarily doing anything wrong, but the low numbers do raise questions.
LMP2
» The Oreca 05 cars run by Jackie Chan DC Racing X Jota are brand new builds from Oreca. All of the previous Oreca 05s were upgraded to the 2017 spec Oreca 07, meaning Jota required 2 brand new cars from the Oreca factory.
» Despite being open to all previous generation LMP2 cars, only Oreca and Ligier are represented. It’s believed discussions were had to bring a BR01 to the series, but that never materialised. The ARC Bratislava Ligier is the ex-Krohn Racing car.
» Jota WEC regular Thomas Laurent was the star of the show. The young Frenchman pulled a 45 minute lead in the opening stint, putting the #8 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca in a strong position for the rest of the race.
» The #7 Jota had a troublesome race. The car suffered electrical problems, which caused a loss of power steering and eventually loss of power. The team were the only retirement of the race.
» The only potential hiccup for the #8 car was contact with the #66 Audi R8 LMS. The incident removed the legality panel from the left rear, but luckily caused no further damage. The team replaced the rear clip during the first pit stop, fixing the issue.
» Should the #8 continue this performance, and Jackie Chan DC Racing continue their current WEC commitments, it would give Jackie Chan DC Racing x Jota 3 Le Mans entries for 2018. This could even become 4, more on that in a minute.
LMP3
» Despite the explosion of LMP3, the opening round sees a drop in numbers and variety compared to last season. Gone are the Ginetta and Adess, as the Ligier becomes the only LMP3 entry.
GT Class
» The GT Class is the biggest casualty of the decreased grid numbers. The successful launch of the Blancpain Asia series has meant a lot of teams migrated over to the SRO run series during the summer. Blancpain Asia only wrapped up their season a couple of weeks ago, so the potential remains for some cars to return to the Asian Le Mans Series.
» 4 cars were listed in the GT (GT3) class before the weekend, with one in the GT Cup Class. Unfortunately the Spirit of the Race Ferrari never made it to the race, and the GT Cup entry also never materialised. Only 3 GT cars took the green flag.
