Ogino Scored Two Wins at Sugo

Round 3 and 4 of the Porsche Sprint Challenge Japan took place at Sports Land Sugo, Miyagi pref. on 16 May.  There were six cars in GT3-I class for 991 Gen.-I Cup, and two cars in GT4 class for 718 Cayman GT4 CS. In the GT I class, Nagashima took pole position during the qualifying session, which began at 8:30 AM. Hagiwara took second and Ogino took third grid. In the GT4 class, Sawa, Porsche Japan Junior Driver, got pole and Yokoi came after Sawa.

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Round 3 started at 12:15 PM for 10 laps. Pole sitter Nagashima got a hole-shot at the first corner. Ogino, who was leading the championship, tried getting into inside of Hagiwara but Hagiwara defended his position. Ogino recorded the fastest lap time for a few laps from opening and passed Hagiwara at the 3rd lap. Ogino kept giving pressure to Nagashima, who was second in the championship then. At home straight on 9th lap, Nagashima tried to block Ogino coming into inside but did a half- spin and sunk to third. Ogino got the checkered flag at first. Hagiwara was on second. In the GT4 class, Sawa was leading the race but he got back into his pit on the 5th lap because of a problem with the cooling system. As a result of DNF of Sawa, Yokoi won his first ever race in the PSCJ series.

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Round 4 started at 3 :23 PM under rain. Still, there were some parts of the track with dry conditions but all cars wore rain tires, some cars changed their tires from slick to rain at grids.  Because of this difficult track condition, the race started with the safety car.

The grids were set by the best lap from the previous race. The order from the top was Ogino, Hagiwara and Nagashima. The gaps between those three cars were unchanged by the end of 8th lap. Nagashima was closing the gap between Ogino on 9th lap and it was only 0.64 seconds when the race got into the final rap. However, Ogino took advantage of the tough track condition to keep his position by the checkered flag. He was undefeated in all four races of the season. After the two races in Sugo, Ogino is leading the championship with 60 points and Nagashima was on second with 50 points.

In the GT4 class, it was the first race for both drivers with 718 Cayman GT4 CS but they finished the race without any trouble. Sawa won the race and Yokoi was next.

Round 5 and 6 of PSCJ will be held at Okayama International Circuit on 13 June.

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