Daisuke Yamawaki and Shinichi Takagi mowed over the competition to win SRO Japan Cup Race 1 at Fuji Speedway. It’s the first win for the #98 Ferrari 296 GT3 that finished second in both Japan Cup rounds at Sportsland Sugo.
Clouds and wind gusts had settled in since the end of GT World Challenge Asia Race 1, leading to different conditions than those that the drivers qualified in earlier in the day. Yamawaki started from pole next to the #7 Comet Racing Ferrari of Yorikatsu Tsujiko, but GT3 newcomer Motoki Tanaki was on the move in the Transformers-themed #9 Bingo Racing Corvette.
Takami didn’t let up the pressure on Yamawaki and soon he was through in the lead, but Yamawaki in turn didn’t let Takami out of his sights.
The race turned during the ten-minute pit window. Yamawaki had the luxury of coming in early to hand the controls over to his co-driver Takagi. Takagi quickly got up to speed, and by the time the #9 Bingo Corvette made its pit stop, Takagi was able to drive away to a comfortable nine-second advantage over Shinji Takei behind him.
Tadao Uematsu then overtook Takei for third in his #55 Macchina Racing Team McLaren 720S GT3 – and Takagi clicked off laps to build an unassailable margin over the field, taking the chequered flag more than 33 seconds ahead.
K-tunes Racing’s second car, the #96 Lexus RC F GT3 (Kazunori Suenaga/Morio Nitta), made a late charge through the field and took second with less than five minutes to go.
GT3 Am honours and third overall went to Uematsu in the #55 Macchina McLaren, who held off Takei in the #9 Bingo Corvette in the closing laps, by only three-tenths of a second.
The #7 Comet Racing Ferrari of Tsujiko and Yusuke Yamasaki finished fifth in GT3, followed by the #47 D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 (Tatsuya Hoshino/Kenji Hama), #81 GTNET MotorSports Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 (Noboyuki Oyagi/Ryuichiro Oyagi), and #360 Tomei Sports Nissan (Masaaki Nishikawa/Atsushi Tanaka).
The big drama came in the GT4 class where a ten-second time penalty for an unsafe pit release denied the #50 Y’Z Racing BMW M4 GT4 of Yuki Fujii and Masaki Kano its second win of the year.
The win instead went to the #39 Toyota Gazoo Racing Indonesia GR Supra GT4 of Haridarma Manoppo and the debuting Kazuhisa Urabe – the latter filling in for Seita Nonaka who was honouring his Super Formula Lights commitments.
The #82 Sunrise BLVD Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 (Yoshitomo Makino/Daiki Fujiwara) nearly swiped the win but finished second by 0.310 seconds, ahead of the #38 Wakayama Toyota/Hojust Racing GR Supra (Noriyuki Higuchi/Takeshi Suehiro), that battled for the class lead early on.
Fujii and Kano slipped off the GT4 podium to fourth, the #97 K-tunes GR Supra (Yoshichika Nagai/Masahiko Kageyama) would take fifth in class.
Of the 16 cars that started, the sole GTC class entry – Makoto Haga’s Hitotsuyama Racing-backed #83 Gama 83 Racing Porsche 911 Cup car, was 13th overall.
Images © SRO Motorsports Group Asia
