This is a weird title for a blog post, I know. But let me explain! A day of drama at the seven hour Fuji round of the Super Taikyu Series ended with our #28 SLS AMG GT3 classified in a lowly 40th position overall, some 57 laps shy of the race winner (our team mates, no less).
But this big, dark cloud – much like those which descended with ferocious thunder and lightning today – has a silver lining.
Super Taikyu has this year added a ‘drop round’ clause to the series format, meaning your worst round can be erased from this record. Think of it as a ‘get out of jail free card’, or in this instance, the pusscat using up the last of its nine precious lives.
Now, of course, the remaining three rounds of the Championship are of vital importance. Put simply, we need to translate our clear race-winning pace into results.
Okayama will be the key, in three weeks time.
But back to Fuji for the moment! We struggled right up until race day with the balance of Car #28, and were unimpressed with our speed, especially in qualifying where we only managed fourth position.
This was compounded when I was slapped with a 4-spot grid penalty for crossing the ‘blend line’ entering the pit lane, making for more work for us in the early phase of the race.
We had seven hours to get to the front, though, and Sunday’s warm up had us relieved that our balance issues were solved and we had a good race car beneath us.
Race time and after an hour the top five were split by just 8-seconds. The battle was on! Ten minutes later and TK [Tatsuya Kataoka] took the lead for us and built a nice gap before handing over to Fariqe [Hairuman], who showed great pace and consistency to build a buffer on the chasing pack.
A technicality during the pit stop where I jumped in the car had an extra ‘pair of hands’ from the team landing us with yet another penalty. After a 20-second stop/go, I rejoined in third, charged on and passed the second placed Nissan GT-R soon after.
With our team mates within sight, I had my next target, but just moments later the fan belt broke on the car, forcing me into the pits for repairs.
Over 30-minutes later, we were still up on jacks, and any hopes of a podium let alone a victory had all but slipped away.
Then the rain came. And it came in typical Japanese fashion, with thunder and lightning and golf ball sized rain drops, and the drama that ensued was expected by many up and down pit lane.
With further car troubles as the race drew to a close, the team elected to err on the side of caution and run our car only to the minimum required number of laps to be considered a finisher, which was 160.
As our team mates took another win, we were left wondering ‘what if’. But as I say, the contingency of the last of the cat’s ‘contingency lives’ really helped us today.
No more margin for error from here on out. Let’s hope our troubles are over and we can get ourselves back on track for the Championship.
Jono Lester – #FlyingKiwi
Driver of the #28 PETRONAS Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG in the Super Taikyu Series
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