CarGuy beats Yogibo to get Race 1 win at Fuji

If in doubt, leave it to Kei Cozzolino, that was the motto applied at CarGuy Racing in the first FANATEC GT World Challenge Asia race at Fuji Speedway, where he and Takeshi Kimura did the tactics right to beat Yogibo Racing and AAS Motorsport in the second half of the race.

The all-Ferrari front row had the No. 777 CarGuy and the No. 27 Yogibo entries leading the way along the home straight, with Naoki Yokomizo almost letting the No. 16 AAS Porsche go to second place, but squeezing the Porsche to the inside to limit its movement range. Yokomizo was quick to get the lead from Takeshi Kimura in the No. 777, dealing with the lime green Ferrari in a single lap and leaving into Kantadhee Kusiri’s strike zone.

Yokomizo was pretty much going away with the lead since Kimura didn’t have the cornering to deal with the field behind him, but Kusiri put the No. 16 in second a lap later to start catching up with the No. 27 Yogibo Ferrari, and Hiroshi Hamaguchi in the No. 19 Reap Fueling Ambitions Lamborghini was the next to overtake Kimura, trying to join the chasing pack as soon as possible.

The GT3 Silver Cup entries were quite entertained in their overall and class battles, which allowed the No. 19 to close down and possibly put a GT3 Am Cup entry in the lead, but traffic and similar pace turned it into a 15 minute deadlock before the Ferraris lead the run to the pits, with the No. 27 still having the advantage over the No. 777.

The early pit stop did wonders to both Ferraris, with the No. 27 leading while the No. 777 had no difficulties to pass the No. 16 AAS Porsche, while the No. 19 Reap Fueling Ambitions Lamborghini saw the first half effort go to waste as Mineki Okura was forced to park off track, which didn’t trigger a neutralization. Kei Cozzolino was fast as usual, so catching up with Kiyoto Fujinami was a matter of time, and despite Fujinami’s brave defense, Cozzolino was simply too fast in the No. 777 CarGuy Ferrari, leaving the pair of GT3 Silver Cup entries behind.

Once Cozzolino got clean air, he just stretched the gap, which secured the overall win for the No. 777 CarGuy Ferrari and also the GT3 Pro-Am Cup wins, the second in the season and in the Japan Cup for Cozzolino and Kimura.

GTWC Asia - Fuji Race 1 results

The No. 27 Yogibo Ferrari kept a good gap to the No. 16 AAS Porsche, which enough to get the GT3 Silver Cup win, and the No. 2 Team Uematsu McLaren just had to keep it clean to dominate the second half of the race in the GT3 Am Cup, consequently scoring the class win. The No. 12 Koshido Toyota capitalized into the No. 55 Team Scala Mercedes’ drive through penalty near the end of the race to score the GT4 win after seeing the car they beat dominate almost all the sixty minutes.

PHOTO: SRO