CarGuy Racing had everything in favor of the No. 777 Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo, but its own success became its own disadvantage in the second race of the FANATEC GT World Challenge Asia weekend at Fuji Speedway, with the No. 99 Triple Eight JMR Mercedes AMG GT3 Evo of Jeffri Ibrahim and Nick Foster capitalizing on a consistent and fast run to win it comfortably.
Race 1 winner No. 777 CarGuy Ferrari had the company of the No. 47 D’Station Aston Martin in the first row, but Kei Cozzolino had no time to lose dealing with the chasing pack, trying to push as hard as possible to create cushion to not only leave Takeshi Kimura in a secure position, but also to overcome the success penalty to be served in the pit window.
Cozzolino did create a gap to the rest of the field, mostly thanks to Kiyoto Fujinami in the No. 27 Yogibo Ferrari holding the pace of the pair of Triple Eight JMR Mercedes, but he still had Tomonobu Fujii in the No. 47 D’Station Aston Martin on his trail, not letting the gap get bigger than 1 or 2 seconds, and Nick Foster’s series of fastest lap in the No. 99 Triple Eight JMR Mercedes was helping to put pressure on Cozzolino.
The No. 777 had some room to breathe when Foster decided to get aggressive to not lose time behind Fujii, but the No. 47 was still doing well on the defensive, but one thing was one-on-one defense, another thing is having two cars from the same team and a bit more on your back, and while the No. 888 Triple Eight JMR Mercedes was disqualified for a false start, the No. 99 was still on the run, making the move to second place before the pit window.
During the pit window period, Cozzolino and Foster weren’t only fighting for the lead on similar pace, they are fighting to see who would play the tactics better to give advantage to Jeffri Ibrahim or Takeshi Kimura, staying as longer possible to maximise the lead, and success penalty considered, the situation wasn’t looking good for CarGuy Racing.
Both the No. 777 and the No. 99 came in with a minute left of pit window, and as expected, the extra 15 seconds that the No. 777 spent stopped came out as a massive drawback, leaving Kimura as target for Tomohide Yamaguchi in the No. 5 Studie BMW, which eventually got second place, bringing along Hiroaki Nagai in the No. 30 Okazaki Porsche to the overall podium.
While Ibrahim had a comfortable gap in front, what was supposed to be the second place battle turned into a lone run for the No. 30 as a minimum pit time infringement from the No. 5 Studie BMW forced it to serve a drive through penalty, and with the overall top-3 simply too spread out, Ibrahim just had to bring home the No. 99 Triple Eight JMR Mercedes with the overall and GT3 Pro-Am Cup wins.
GTWC Asia - Fuji Race 2 results
The No. 27 Yogibo Ferrari was in command of the GT3 Silver Cup, barely missing out the overall podium to the No. 777 CarGuy Ferrari, while the No. 19 Reap Fueling Ambitions Lamborghini got past the Race 1 issues to narrowly win the GT3 Am Cup. The No. 55 Team Scala Mercedes outpaced the No. 12 Koshido Toyota after the pit window to win the GT4 class, also by a tight margin.
The Ibrahim/Foster duo (No. 99) leads the table with 105 points against 75 from the Kimura/Cozzolino pair (No. 777), while Naoki Yokomizo is in third with 54 points. Between the GT4s, the Sato/Hiranaka duo (No. 12) and the Tashiro/Tanigawa duo(No. 55) share the lead with 76 points, with the Hatano/Hosokawa pair (No. 33) in third with 64 points, while the Lee/Yasuoka pair (No. 14) sits in fourth with 60 points.
The GTWC Asia competitors head to Sportsland SUGO in around one month, with Rounds 7 and 8 being held on 20 and 21 August, counting as Rounds 3 and 4 of the FANATEC Japan Cup,
PHOTO: SRO
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