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Formula Sprint 2
Japanese Grand Prix
Suzuka International Racing Course
Tuesday 2nd of April 2024 19:00:00
More
May 31, 2018

 

Edonis engineering take their first 1-2 as ACR Zakspeed have their first pointless round, reopening a championship that may have seemed closed until now.
A dry qualifying was mastered by Kevin Ryan, beating Dennis Lind in 2nd by 0.488s The much anticipated rain started half way through the qualifying though and Arne Schoonvliet in seventh and Chris Shepherd in eighth were ones slightly out of place as the session ended.

There was drama on the grid for the race as Risto Kappet, fourth on the grid, tried a late switch onto the wet tyres having went out on slicks as the race session started dry but continued with rain few seconds before formation lap begun. This relegated the championship leader to start from the pits on a massive 33 car grid. The race started with Kevin Ryan pulling away strongly, as Dennis Lind, having started on slicks, lost ground already before the green flag and spun half way through the first lap to meet his teammate in the rear of the grid.

Schoonvliet was quick to start making up positions and the top 3 of Ryan, Erhan Jajovski and Schoonvliet were racing for the lead of the race for the whole 90 minutes. In the end it seemed like Ryan had done it, overtaking Schoonvliet with few laps to go but an unfortunate tap with a backmarker in the very last corner spun Ryan and put him third behind the Edonis duo.

STAX drivers Barclay and Shepherd were a distant fourth and fifth while Mateusz Bogusz recovered to sixth from 29th on the grid. ACR Zakspeed drivers were only 17th and 25th, having been involved in many accidents and incidents and never recovering from their strategy errors made before the race even started.

The result closes the drivers title standings between Kappet and Schoonvliet to only seven points, while in the teams championship STAX are now being hunted down by Edonis only eight pts behind, with ACR Zakspeed dropping to 3th, 26 pts behind the leaders.

The penultimate round will be held in two weeks in the Red Bull Ring.


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