A tail of contact woe for D'Station Racing at their home round of GTWC Asia Japan Cup
Sunday, July 24, 2022
Having debuted in the series new for 2022 Japan Cup only last weekend at Suzuka, a possible GT3 Pro-Am Class podium was on the cards during their second race last then before their #47 car was pushed onto the grass, from where it spun and collected an innocent GT4 runner whilst Satoshi Hoshino was battling for third overall with just ten minutes of the hour-long race remaining.
Moving onto the local circuit of Fuji (where the team is based), a confident P4 Qualifying position from Hoshino gave the team promise and with the track warm and dry, their green #47 car cloud have been in contention for a high end of class finish before Tomonobu Fujii sustained accident damage – again, with just eight minutes remaining.
They eventually finished race 1 in seventh overall and fifth in class on track but a later time penalty for another car saw that improved to P6 overall and P4 in class respectively.
For Sundays second race, even more was possible as Fujii had already Qualified the car onto the front row of the grid but had admitted that various changes had been made to the car overnight in their search for the balance that the car was still missing.
Holding position throughout the opening quarter of the race behind the dominant #777 Car Guy Ferrari, Fujii’s pace (tyres) would eventually dwindle enough for the cars behind to catch and pressurise him for position – first the #99 Mercedes would pass before it became the turn of the #5 BMW but in doing so, the BMW would impact heavily into the rear of the Aston Martin destroying its rear defuser in the process.
Surprisingly still race worthy, Fujii would pit from fifth to hand over to Hoshino who raced possibly a better race than he normally may have to come out in P12 from his stop to recover to P10 overall/P6 in class by the end.
The next round of the Japan Cup is at Sugo at the end of August.
Photo credits – Team / GTWCAsia
