SETTING THE PACE AT ZHUHAI

SETTING THE PACE AT ZHUHAI, originally uploaded by Matthew Marsh - racing driver.

This weekend I'm back in the harness with buddies Marchy Lee and Alex Yoong driving KK Motorsport's new Audi R8 LMS.

The event is the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup race at Zhuhai circuit in southern China - the first time the cars from the Le Mans 24-hours have raced in the PRC. It's the most significant motor sport event here since F1 arrived in 2004.

Ours is the local team: headed by Zhuhai-based Frenchman Fabien Fior all the mechanics are either local Chinese or Filipino.

Saturday's qualifying session was held on a drying track. Alex made a brave decision to stop for fully slick tyres. His timing was perfect: on the very last lap of the session he jumped from outside of the top 10 to third of all the GT cars. This made us comfortably the fastest in our GTC class and ahead of all the GT2 cars.

The race starts at 12-noon local time on Sunday and will run for 1000 kilometres or six hours, whichever comes sooner.