The 2026 GT World Challenge (GTWC) Asia powered by AWS season continued at Mandalika with a weekend shaped by debut brilliance, sharp strategy and Phantom’s commanding pace.
Jesse Krohn opened proceedings by topping Free Practice for Team KRC, while Jaxon Evans placed Audi Sport Asia Team Phantom fastest in Pre-Qualifying. However, qualifying turned the spotlight towards two series newcomers, as Sean Gelael stormed to Race 1 pole on home soil before Loek Hartog claimed Race 2 pole for Phantom Global.
Once racing began, Phantom took firm control. Cheng Congfu and Yu Kuai converted a timely Safety Car into victory in Race 1, leading home a Phantom Audi one-two. Then, Anthony Liu and Hartog completed the team’s outstanding weekend with a dominant Race 2 win, which reignited Liu’s title challenge.
2026 GTWC Asia: Mandalika: Free Practice: Krohn sets the early benchmark
Krohn wasted little time making his presence felt on his first GTWC Asia appearance since 2023.
Driving Team KRC’s BMW M4 GT3, the former BMW factory driver topped Free Practice with a 1m28.633s lap. His time was two tenths faster than the quickest Thursday test benchmark and nearly half a second clear of his closest rival.
Klaus Bachler ended the session second for Absolute Racing after moving the Porsche up the order twice in the closing minutes. Meanwhile, home favourite and series debutant Sean Gelael had led the way before Krohn’s late improvement.
Still, Gelael’s performance was impressive. Driving Garage 75’s Ferrari solo, he finished third overall and emerged as the leading Silver contender, giving Indonesian fans an early reason to believe.
Yu Kuai placed FAW Audi Sport Asia Team Phantom fourth, ensuring four different manufacturers filled the top four positions. Brendon Leitch completed the top five in Winhere Harmony Racing’s Ferrari.
Further back, Elias Seppanen put Climax Racing’s Mercedes-AMG on top in Silver-Am, while Wang Zhongwei led the Am class for Origine Motorsport.
Official Practice results
Bronze Session results
2026 GTWC Asia: Mandalika: Pre-Qualifying: Evans edges Kondo
Momentum shifted in Pre-Qualifying as Jaxon Evans took Audi Sport Asia Team Phantom to the top.
The New Zealander posted a 1m28.708s lap with 13 minutes remaining, narrowly slower than Krohn’s Free Practice benchmark but quick enough to lead a fiercely competitive session. Notably, the top 17 cars were covered by less than one second.
Tsubasa Kondo delivered another strong showing for NK Racing, finishing second overall and leading the Silver-Am runners. Alongside Kiyoshi Uchiyama, Kondo had already impressed during the Sepang season opener, and his Mandalika pace reinforced their early-season form.
Climax Racing’s Elias Seppanen and Origine Motorsport’s Alessio Picariello set identical times in third and fourth, just 0.017s slower than Evans. Remarkably, Krohn and Yu Kuai also matched each other to the nearest thousandth in fifth and sixth.
Yu’s time was enough to lead the Silver class, while AMAC’s Ben Porter topped the Am category.
Pre-Qualifying results
2026 GTWC Asia: Qualifying: Debutants steal the spotlight
Qualifying delivered a standout storyline as two championship newcomers claimed pole positions.
Q1: Gelael delights home crowd with Race 1 pole
Gelael produced the headline moment of the weekend by securing pole position for Race 1 on his GT World Challenge Asia debut.
The Indonesian initially went fastest on his first flying lap, only for the time to be deleted due to track limits. However, he responded immediately with a 1m28.026s, which remained unbeaten and stood as the fastest lap of the weekend at that stage.
His advantage was decisive. The Garage 75 Ferrari finished half a second clear of the field, giving local fans hope of a home victory.
Deng Yi completed an all-Ferrari front row for Winhere Harmony Racing, narrowly ahead of Akash Nandy’s solo-driven Absolute Racing Lamborghini. Cheng Congfu placed fourth in FAW Audi Sport Asia Team Phantom’s Audi, ensuring Silver class drivers locked out the top four.
Anthony Liu led the Pro-Am runners in fifth, while championship leader Huang Ruohan qualified sixth for Absolute Racing after a red flag interrupted the session.
Ben Porter impressed again by qualifying seventh overall as the fastest Am driver, with Indonesian driver Andrés Pato eighth. Dean Chen completed the Silver-Am benchmark by placing inside the top 10 for Craft-Bamboo Racing.
Qualifying 1 results
Q2: Hartog beats Evans to Race 2 pole
Q2 initially looked set to become a battle between Friday pace-setters Krohn and Evans. However, Loek Hartog soon took control.
Standing in for Dorian Boccolacci at Phantom Global, Hartog delivered a 1m27.681s lap to claim Race 2 pole. The time was half a second quicker than the previous year’s pole benchmark and just 0.083s faster than Evans.
Krohn placed Team KRC’s BMW third, less than a tenth further back, while Winhere Harmony Racing locked out fourth and fifth with Brendon Leitch ahead of Liu Kaishun.
Gelael remained competitive and narrowly missed another Silver class pole, while Porsche regulars Alessandro Ghiretti and Picariello had to settle for row four after failing to match Hartog’s pace.
Adderly Fong and Maxime Oosten completed the top 10 as the leading Silver-Am contenders.
Qualifying 2 results
2026 GTWC Asia: Races: Phantom takes control in Indonesia
Race 1: Cheng and Yu lead Phantom Audi one-two
Race 1 began with Gelael defending his lead from pole, cutting across Deng Yi to maintain track position into the opening corners.
However, the Indonesian’s chances were always complicated by additional mandatory pitstop time for competing as a solo driver and new Silver entry. To win, he needed a fast and uninterrupted opening stint. Instead, a Full Course Yellow and subsequent Safety Car period changed the race completely.
The neutralisation, required to recover stranded cars from GTO with KRC and Porsche Center Okazaki, erased Gelael’s opportunity to build a decisive gap. It also handed the advantage to Silver entries without extra pitstop penalties.
Cheng, running third after passing Nandy early on, pitted at the first opportunity and handed over to Yu. Winhere Harmony Racing ran deeper into the window, but when Liu Kaishun emerged behind Yu, the net lead had swung decisively towards Phantom.
Further drama followed when Liu and Krohn made contact at Turn 12 after a long side-by-side battle. Both spun, opening the door for Evans and Andrés Pato to climb into second overall.
From there, Yu controlled the race to secure overall, Silver class and China Cup victory. Evans completed a Phantom Audi one-two alongside Pato, who also claimed Pro-Am honours. Gelael finished third overall, still securing a memorable home podium on debut.
Behind them, Huang and Ghiretti finished fourth for Absolute Racing despite carrying a success penalty from Sepang. Craft-Bamboo Racing’s Dean Chen and Liang Jiatong delivered an excellent drive to win Silver-Am and finish fifth overall.
Origine Motorsport’s Wang Zhongwei and Liu Hangcheng claimed Am victory, extending their class points lead.
Race 1 results
Race 2: Liu and Hartog strike back in title chase
Race 2 was a far more controlled affair for Phantom.
Hartog made a clean start from pole and led Evans through the opening stint. The Dutchman was never seriously threatened and handed over to Liu with a 2.7s advantage. Since Evans and Pato had extra pitstop time for finishing second on Saturday, Liu emerged with a comfortable lead after the stops.
Behind him, the fight for the remaining podium places was much more intense. Lu Wei, whose co-driver Picariello had charged from eighth to third at the start, became involved in a battle with Vutthikorn Inthraphuvasak and Huang.
Huang eventually found a way through, passing his Absolute Racing teammate after a Full Course Yellow and then battling Lu in a move that was finally resolved at Turn 12. Inthraphuvasak then misjudged his braking into the penultimate corner and made contact with Lu, spinning himself around.
Lu continued but later received a track limits drive-through penalty, dropping the Origine Porsche to ninth.
Liu remained untouched at the front and crossed the line 16 seconds clear, claiming his first GT World Challenge Asia victory since 2024. The result also moved him level with Lu on seven overall wins, the most in championship history.
Huang and Ghiretti finished second to strengthen their championship lead, while Pato and Evans completed another strong weekend with third overall.
Nandy claimed Silver honours with a superb run to fourth overall, despite serving additional solo driver pitstop time. Tony Ruan and Krohn finished fifth for Team KRC, while Chen and Liang secured their second Silver-Am win of the weekend after GTO with KRC’s BMW was penalised for a short pitstop.
AMAC’s Andrew Macpherson and Ben Porter inherited Am victory after Setiawan Santoso and Zhou Bi Huang received a late drive-through penalty.
Race 2 results
Incidents, penalties and missed opportunities
Across both races, Mandalika again showed how quickly GT World Challenge Asia fortunes can change.
In Race 1, the Safety Car transformed the competitive picture and effectively ended Gelael’s realistic hopes of converting pole into victory. The clash between Liu Kaishun and Krohn then reshaped the podium battle, handing Phantom the chance to complete its Audi one-two.
Race 2 featured its own flashpoints. Gelael’s home weekend ended without a fairytale second podium after his Garage 75 Ferrari made contact with Adderly Fong’s Harmony Ferrari and became stranded in the gravel, triggering an early Safety Car.
Inthraphuvasak’s contact with Lu also proved costly, while track limits penalties and pitstop infringements changed several class results. Winhere Harmony Racing recovered to finish eighth overall and second in Silver after a drive-through, with Deng Yi also setting the fastest lap.
Championship picture and next stop
Following Mandalika, Huang Ruohan and Alessandro Ghiretti remain the early championship leaders thanks to impressive consistency across the opening four races. Their record now includes a victory, second place, third place and fourth place.
However, Liu’s Race 2 victory alongside Hartog has reignited his title challenge. He now sits just nine points behind the Absolute Racing pair, while Phantom’s outstanding Indonesian weekend confirms the team as a major force in the championship fight.
Gelael’s one-off appearance also gave the Mandalika crowd a memorable home storyline, highlighted by pole position and a Race 1 podium.
GT World Challenge Asia now heads to Shanghai on June 5–6, where the next two one-hour races will be split across Friday and Saturday due to national exams. After Phantom’s Mandalika masterclass, the championship battle looks finely balanced heading into China.
