Four SRO Japan Cup races have produced four different overall winners this season. Last weekend at Fuji Speedway, the #666 seven x seven Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Hiroyuki ‘Bankcy’ Ogawa and Taichi Watarai won Race 1, while Race 2 honours went to the #296 Hitotsuyama with Cornes Racing Ferrari 296 GT3, driven by Akihiro Tsuzuki and Shintaro Kawabata.
Race 1 on Saturday got off to an eventful start: On the first green flag lap, contact at TGR Corner between the #24 Max Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Yudai Uchida and the #45 PONOS Racing Ferrari of Yorikatsu Tsujiko caused both cars to retire from the race.
Not long after that, the #84 Art Taste with JMS Racing Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3, making its season debut, caught fire and stopped at 100R Corner. Driver Nobuhiro Imada was able to walk away, and the damage from the fire was not so bad as to prevent him and Yasuhiro Shimizu from running Race 2.
The race was red-flagged for 15 minutes before it resumed, with pole-sitter Tsuzuki in the lead ahead of the #9 Bingo Racing with LM corsa Ferrari of Shinji Takei, and the #555 Maezawa Racing Ferrari of Yusaku Maezawa.
But with no success penalty to serve in the pits, the #666 seven x seven Porsche jumped to the net lead after driver changes, putting Watarai – who was filling in for ace driver Kiyoto Fujinami – in the lead.
Watarai, in his first SRO Japan Cup start, successfully held off the more experienced Kawabata to give seven x seven Racing its first win of the season. That win elevated Bankcy to the top of the GT3 Drivers’ Championship after three races.
The #18 Team UPGarage with ACR Ferrari of Atsushi Akita and Takashi Kobayashi rounded out the Race 1 podium in third, followed by the #555 Ferrari of Maezawa and Naoki Yokomizo in fourth, and the #96 K-tunes Racing Lexus RC F GT3 (Kazunori Suenaga/Nirei Fukuzumi) in fifth.
GT3 Am class victory went to the #1 Team Macchina Ferrari (Tadao Uematsu/Hirokazu Suzuki) in sixth, ahead of the #9 Bingo Ferrari of Takei and Ukyo Sasahara, which suffered a puncture at the start of Sasahara’s stint and dropped to seventh.
Australian Jake Parsons and Canadian Jesse Anthony Swinimer claimed the victory in the GTC class, driving their new #27 AWD Racing Porsche 992 GT3 Cup.
And in GT4, the #39 Toyota Gazoo Racing Indonesia GR Supra GT4 EVO2 (Haridarma Manoppo/Seita Nonaka) won for the third time this season, holding off the #82 Sunrise Blvd Porsche 718 GT4 RS Clubsport (Yoshitomo Makino/Daiki Fujiwara) by just four-tenths of a second.
Sasahara, just a few weeks removed from a history-making SUPER GT victory in Sepang, would start Race 2 on pole position with PONOS Racing ace Kei Cozzolino to his outside.
But at the end of the first racing lap, the #97 K-tunes Toyota GT4 of Betty Chen crashed into team-mate Shinichi Takagi (#98 K-tunes Ferrari) at TGR Corner, and then Chen’s car flipped in the gravel before landing on top of the tyre barriers. Thankfully, neither driver suffered serious injuries.
For the second time, the race was red-flagged, then resumed with Sasahara in the lead, ahead of Cozzolino, and Kawabata.
The Bingo/LM corsa crew was poised to maintain the lead after mid-race driver changes, but would be hit with a three-second stop-and-go penalty for a short pit stop, which took Takei out of contention.
Tsujiko, whose race effectively lasted one corner on Saturday, took the lead after the penalty, but Tsuzuki in the #296 Hitotsuyama Ferrari was closing quickly. He overtook Uchida for second place, then began chipping away at Tsujiko’s ten-second lead.
With the 60-minute race clock about to hit zeroes, Tsujiko backed out a bit coming through Panasonic Corner (turn 16) to ensure he’d take the chequered flag, but instead he took the white flag, and Tsuzuki had closed to within 1.3 seconds of the lead. Tsuzuki closed up around 100R Corner, then, with a lunge up the inside of Advan Corner, he drove the navy blue #296 Ferrari to the lead on the final lap.
The #296 Hitotsuyama Ferrari of Tsuzuki and Kawabata held on to win by 0.519 seconds over the #45 PONOS Ferrari of Tsujiko and Cozzolino.
And thanks to the strong driving of entrepreneur/racer Yusaku Maezawa, his white #555 Ferrari, shared with Yokomizo, made it a podium sweep for the Prancing Horses in Race 2. Maezawa finished just ahead of the #666 seven x seven Porsche of Bankcy/Watarai in fourth. The #24 Max Racing Mercedes-AMG, which was running as high as second, dropped to fifth during Uchida’s last stint.
Sixth overall and first in GT3 Am for the first time was Ryuichiro Oyagi in the #81 Team Daishin with GTNET Nissan. It was the season debut for the famous orange Daishin GT-R, which had also run at this year’s Super Taikyu Fuji Super TEC 24 Hours.
The #96 K-tunes Lexus and #9 Bingo/LM corsa Ferrari completed the top eight finishers overall.
Hiro Ichinokura in his #16 NGR Porsche 991 GT3 Cup took the GTC class win over Race 1 winners Swinimer/Parsons, while the #39 TGR-ID GR Supra of Manoppo and Nonaka maintained its perfect record in GT4, and moved closer to clinching the championship at the next round in Okayama International Circuit.
Victory in Race 2 propelled Tsuzuki and Kawabata to a 12-point lead in the GT3 Championship, with Bankcy now in second; Takei/Sasahara dropped from first to third in the standings after the weekend, now trailing by 20 points.
Images © SRO Motorsports Group
