Car Guy in defence of ALMS title

The 2019-20 season of the Asian Le Mans Series (ALMS) kicks off this weekend with the 4 Hours of Shanghai. The Japanese team Car Guy, reigning GT class champion, is one of four that will compete behind the wheel of the Ferrari 488 GT3. The winner of the series gains automatic entry to the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Car Guy. After dominating the ALMS debut season with four wins out of four, reigning champions Takeshi Kimura and Kei Cozzolino will be joined by the new Italian Pro-Am class champion, Antonio Fuoco, as the third driver in place of James Calado.

Spirit of Race. After battling it out with Car Guy for the title down to the final race, Spirit of Race returns with the same crew. Francesco Piovanetti and Oswaldo Negri Jr will line up alongside the winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Petit Le Mans Alessandro Pier Guidi.

HubAuto Corsa. HubAuto Corsa’s trio is aiming high on the team’s series debut. The three include official GT racing driver Davide Rigon, Marcos Gomes – who has previously driven for the Chinese Taipei team in the Blancpain GT World Challenge Asia alongside Yuya Sakamoto – and Morris Chen.

T2 Motorsports. After competing in the Blancpain GT World Challenge Asia in the Pro-Am class, the Indonesian team will deploy David Tjiptobiantoro and the former Formula 1 driver Rio Haryanto together with the experienced Christian Colombo. The latter recently won Race-1 at Monza in the Italian GT Championship with Ken Abe.

Hard fought class. The GT3 class is the biggest with nine cars lining up at the start. It has also seen an increase in the number of manufacturers to four. Calendar. After the debut in China, the second outing of the four-race series takes place in Australia, with the 4 Hours of Bend in mid-January. The third round will be held in Malaysia, with the 4 Hours of Sepang, which finishes under artificial lighting, before the grand finale at the Buriram International Circuit.