Alex Fontana can celebrate: GT4 class champion in the China GT Championship, the great Asian nation’s principle GT series. The 27-year-old Swiss driver hit the bullseye in his first season in the series, sharing with Chis Chia the cockpit of the Phantom Pro Racing team’s Mercedes AMG GT4 with works support from the German company.
The decisive round was the final race Shanghai, held on the same circuit used for the Formula 1 Grand Prix held in June. Fontana and Chia came into the race as championship leaders, ahead of another two crews who were fighting for championship honours, and in the end triumphed by the slender margin of just 2.5 points after a pulsating finale.
Alex put in a fantastic performance in Race 1, taking over from Chia with the car in 6th place: the Swiss driver forced his way through to take the lead with four and half minutes of racing remaining, stunning his adversaries under braking at Corner 14. This win increased the pair’s lead in the championship standings going into the final race on the Sunday. Driving the first stint in Race 2, Fontana handed over to Chia with the Mercedes #5 leading, but the entrance of the Safety Car wiped out the advantage he had accumulated. Chia nonetheless came home in 4th place, which proved to be enough to lay claim to the title. This success also confirmed his presence in the team as it moves up to the GT3 class for the 2020 season.
The winner of the European F3 Open in 2011 and the Silver Cup in the 2018 Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup, Fontana has now enhanced his career record with another title in yet another discipline and geographical area. His Chinese adventure, which began in 2016 as a works driver for Kia in the CTCC has gone from strength to strength.
Alex Fontana
“Winning a title is always an immense joy, crowning a season of hard work and determination in which we left everything on the track. It was by no means easy to win right away in the China GT Championship, a competitive series featuring a number of adversaries of international calibre, yet this was the objective of this new team from the very start. The Phantom Pro Racing outfit, my teammate Chris Chia and myself established a great relationship that allowed us to get the best out of our Mercedes AMG GT4 through to the decisive final weekend. Victory in Race 1 was fantastic and of vital importance, especially given the safety car episode in Race 2 that risked comprising our entire strategy. Now we can relax and enjoy the moment, but we’re already dreaming about repeating our success in 2020.”