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Formula Sprint 2
Japanese Grand Prix
Suzuka International Racing Course
Tuesday 2nd of April 2024 19:00:00
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September 09, 2010
Published on tags: Superleague
With the Drivers' Championship assigned and the Constructors' Championship seemingly going Nordsjoen Racing's way, the GPVWC teams arrived in Italy with just glory to fight for. As usual, though, the race produced thrills and spills as the drivers fought for each point and battled to overcome their rivals.

In qualifying, Nordsjoen achieved a rare 1-2 as Janne Tanskanen edged Adam Rouse by 4 tenths. An ever-improving Jason Muscat on Red Archer out-qualified Mark Wicks and Jyri Lylykorpi, while Mark Stanton and William Ponissi got Constant Racing's best ever qualifying joint effort with 8th and 9th.

Monza starts are always a dangerous affair, and Bastien Gauthier and Tim-Oliver Wagner were left to face the consequence of it, retiring from the race. Ponissi, hit by Millar, lost the rear wing, while two more cars were forced to stop for repairs. Despite spinning out and ending up last on turn 3, Mark Stanton made a great effort and managed to be back in 5th after only 20 laps, while another great start was made by Chris Williamson, who gained 7 places by lap 4.

A relatively emotion-free race changed when a big name, Kieran Ryan, lost his comfortable 3rd position together with his car's front wing: the subsequent pit-stop put him 6th, and signalled the start of a bad afternoon for the Irishman. A few laps later, his race came to an end when he was left no space to go by a spin by Phil Perkins, the retirement marking the end of Ryan's ambitions of clinching P2 in the Drivers' Championship off team mate Mark Wicks.

A curious incident terminated the races of high-flying Rouse and Muscat: in what happened to be an interesting battle of strategies, with the Nordsjoen driver stopping twice and the Red Archer leader on a one-stop mission, both retired within 4 laps as the electronic systems in their cars failed. Retirement befell Mark Stanton too as he passed Tom Parker to go 3rd - a hit for Constant Racing, only minorly sweetened by William Ponissi gaining 7th when Parker pulled out of the race too.

The last emotions of the race were given by Wicks, who was forced to an emergency pit-stop after hitting the wall and giving up any hope to fight Tanskanen for the win, and by Christoph Lichtenstein, who saw a podium finish slip away from his hands as he spun out with only a handful of laps left, relinquishing P3 to Sam Millar.