The first Hong Kong racing driver to win the GT World Challenge Europe in a Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo – meet Jonathan Hui, who wears racing watches like the Rolex Daytona 6263
Hui made history with Sky Tempesta Racing teammate, former F1 driver Giancarlo Fisichella – as he aims to do in his day job at family property business Central Development Group with help from his Patek Philippe and Hublot watches
This year, Jonathan Hui became the first Hongkonger to win the GT World Challenge Europe, racing in the pro-am category with the Sky Tempesta Racing team. “Racing is so direct in terms of this notion of racing against time because every single thing you do is measured against the clock, against the stopwatch,” says the history-making racing driver.
What’s more, he achieved this memorable first, as a teammate of racing legend Giancarlo Fisichella, after sustaining a nasty foot injury that saw him having to brake the car – a Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo – with his left foot rather than the right. He also hadn’t done any sprint-length racing in eight years, so to win was really special.
In GT racing, where drivers are changed through the race, every decision and reaction has to do with saving time. Every action is streamlined for efficiency in this head-to-head with the clock, whether it’s removing your seat belt, refuelling or changing tyres in the pit.
“You’re not just looking at every second, it’s every tenth of a second,” explains Hui, whose team won the 2019 Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup.
But getting too greedy about shaving off milliseconds could result in a mistake, leading to a knock-on effect for the rest of the race. “You’ve got to be very controlled,” says Hui. “It’s that added element of risk that you’re chasing time but you don’t want to risk losing more.”
It’s a very different philosophy on time when you’re part of a family legacy – you shift from saving seconds to building and preserving for coming generations. When Hui isn’t representing Hong Kong, he works in property investment at the family business, Central Development Group, which was founded by his late grandfather, Hui Sai Fun.