Shioya capitalizes on others’ mistakes to claim his maiden win

Resshu Shioya scored his maiden TCR Japan victory in the last race of the Saturday Series at Suzuka. Shioya who had rejoined the championship in the previous event after completing cancer therapy, capitalised on his competitors’ mistakes, advancing from third to first during the final laps after ‘Hirobon’ served a drive through and Anna Inotsume went wide.
At the start, Inotsume had a better reflex from P2 on the grid than pole sitter ‘Hirobon’, but the latter took the lead into Turn 1 using the outside line. From that moment on, the race became processional, with ‘Hirobon’ building a small margin over Inotsume who was followed by Shioya. Behind the leading trio, ‘Mototino’ was defending the fourth place from Masanobu Kato and Mineki Okura. 
Nothing changed until lap 7, when ‘Hirobon’ was given a drive through for jumping the start and rejoined in eighth position. Inotsume inherited the lead with a comfortable margin over Shioya and she looked set to claim her maiden win when she made a mistake during the final lap, opening the door to Shioya who seized the opportunity to pass her winning by 1.7 seconds that became 6.7 as Inotsume was given a five-second penalty for sitting in a wrong position on the grid.
The same happened to ‘Mototino’ who also went wide in a corner, which paved the way to Kato for stealing the third place. During the final lap, ‘Hirobon’ benefited from the fight between Masayoshi Oyama and Kenji Suzuki to pass them both and finish sixth.
With ‘Hirobon’ who had already clinched the Saturday Series title two weeks ago at Motegi, Kato finished as the runner up ahead of Okura.     
Action will resume tomorrow morning with the Qualifying session for the Sunday Series’ race that will start at 11:15 local time (03:15 CET); live streaming at www.tcr-series.com. 

Suzuka – Race 1
1. Resshu Shioya (Team G/Motion, Honda Civic Type R FK8), 10 laps
2. Anna Inotsume (DOME Racing, Honda Civic Type R FK8), 6.724
3. Masanobu Kato (Team Mars, Audi RS 3 LMS), 14.513
4. ‘Mototino’ (55 Moto Racing, Honda Civic Type R FK8), 15.802
5. Mineki Okura (M-Prototyping Stile Corse, Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce), 17.154

Championship points – Saturday series
1. ‘Hirobon’ 120 pts; 2. M. Kato 80; 3. M. Okura 72

Picture: TCR Japan