Alessio Picariello sealed Pro Class pole position in the first Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia Powered by AWS qualifying session of the season at Chang International Circuit this morning.

Picariello’s AAS Motorsport by Absolute Racing Porsche was fastest in the Pro segment courtesy of two overall quickest times. Triple Eight JMR’s #88 Mercedes-AMG beat the top Silver and Fanatec China Cup entry driven by Ling Kang to Race 1 pole by 0.122s

GT3 Q1

The first fully dry conditions since Thursday’s test sessions greeted teams and drivers at Buriram this morning where the 23-strong Am contingent as well as two Silvers produced a top-12 covered by one second.

Several drivers spent time at the top early on, but it was Anthony Liu, Bao Jinlong and then Andrew Haryanto who set representative pace in the first five minutes.

Absolute’s #992 Porsche then became the first to dip below 1m36s, but it wasn’t enough for Bao to clinch pole. Instead, that accolade went to Ibrahim who saved his best – 1m35.538s – for last.

Phantom Pro Racing’s #29 Audi slotted into second after lapping 0.122s slower than Ibrahim, while home favourite Vutthikorn Inthraphuvasak (AAS/Absolute) pushed Bao back to fourth in the final reckoning. 0.154s covered the quartet.

A late improvement saw Yuan Bo (R&B Racing) make it three Porsches in the top-five, while Liu’s Craft-Bamboo Mercedes-AMG took sixth.

Dennis Olsen topped a damp-but-drying second practice session at Buriram this afternoon after lunchtime’s downpour gave way to brighter weather.

The Dane, who shares R&B Racing’s Porsche with Wei Lu, took advantage of the improving conditions by setting two fastest laps in quick succession right at the end of the hour-long session. The second – 1m39.539s – was still six seconds down on Fabian Schiller’s Thursday testing benchmark, which underlined the untapped performance.

His first effort was also better than AAI’s BMW driven by Jens Klingmann, who improved late on but fell just under a second shy of the 911 ahead.

Team-mate and fellow BMW factory driver Jesse Krohn slotted the other M4 into third on his final flyer, albeit 2.4s down on Olsen after rain began steadily falling again in the final moments.

NK Racing only received its new 992-spec Porsche on Thursday, which made their fourth place time somewhat remarkable, while Broc Feeney – in fifth – set his and Triple Eight JMR’s best lap 10 minutes before Olsen enjoyed the session’s optimum conditions.

Franky Cheng rounded out the top-six in Absolute Racing’s Audi.

The first of this weekend’s races goes green at 15:30. Watch both of them live on GT World’s YouTube channel.