Igor Fraga has taken victory in the 2022 Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup, the curtain-raiser for the World Finals.
In each of the past three seasons, the Toyota event has heralded success in the World Finals themselves, with all previous winners going on to win the Nations Cup, Manufacturers Cup, or both. Fraga’s win therefore bodes well for the 2018 Nations and 2019 & 2021 Manufacturers champion in this weekend’s finals.
However Fraga had to settle for third place in qualifying, behind countryman Lucas Bonelli and the overall fastest man Jose Serrano. That meant Fraga would be placed in Semi-Final A behind Serrano and in a difficult-looking field that included 2020 triple champion Takuma Miyazono, and 2022 revelation Kylian Drumont.
Several drivers, including Drumont, didn’t set a time due to errors around the High Speed Ring circuit — with the stewards keeping a keen eye on any contact with the barriers.
Semi-Final A
With drivers required to use both Soft and Hard tires during the 25-lap race at High Speed RIng, it was a surprise to see just two — Fraga and Miyazono — starting on the soft option. Despite early attention from Will Murdoch, the two soft-starters pulled away from the pack.
That was thinned out somewhat by a massive crash on lap one, with Takuma Sasaki forced into the outside barrier at the esses and spearing across the track. That accounted for Sasaki, Thomas Labouteley, Quinten Jehoul, and Cyrus Cross in one hit.
Drumont was the next to face the wrong way, as a collision with an unlucky Kanata Kawakami round the high-speed banking collected the Frenchman. Kawakami picked up a two-second penalty for the crash.
With the switchover between tire grades coming mid-race, the six-second gap between Fraga and Miyazono and the chasing Giorgio Mangano and Jose Serrano behind began to close very rapidly. It was in fact a little too rapid, as the four cars soon found themselves on the same patch of road.
Had they worked together — with the top four going through to the final — there’d have been no issue, but the inevitable happened. Coming through turn two, Serrano and Miyazono came together, sending the Japanese former champion spinning and earning Serrano a three-second penalty.
That allowed Mangano to escape clear of Fraga, while the battling Kawakami and Murdoch would take third and fourth.
Semi-Final B
If Semi-Final A was a little chaotic, Semi-Final B was mayhem.
This time only Rikuto Kobayashi started on the softs, trying to make up some places from a lowly 11th-place start. Initially the plan was working, as Kobayashi dragged up onto the leading duo of Andika Rama Maulana and Lucas Bonelli.
However the race was defined by a major incident on lap three, involving half the field. Heading down the straight towards turn two, Robert Heck caught the back of Bonelli, sparking a chain reaction which swallowed up the back six and ending the participation of the luckless Adriano Carrazza.
Kobayashi did hit the front and eventually break the draft, but come the mid-race tire change he was a sitting duck. First Beauvois, then Maulana breezed past the Japanese driver with well over a quarter of the race remaining.
That brought Dean Heldt and Valerio Gallo up onto Kobayashi’s rear wing and as the three fought against wearing tires both Heck and Bonelli were back in the action again. That result in the second major incident of the race.
Gallo appeared to react too late to cover the inside of the banking and caught Heldt’s nose. The spinning Nations Cup champion collected Kobayashi too, and an extensive post-race investigation eventually concluded that the Italian was at fault.
With the path cleared, Bonelli and Heck were able to claim third and fourth after their early race woese, behind the winner Baptiste Beauvois who ran a controlled race to hold Maulana at bay to the line.
Repechage
That set up the last-chance Repechage, with the drivers placing 5th-10th in each of the Semi-Finals racing for four final places. No tire strategies were needed, with just a 12-lap sprint in the Super Formula cars for the four places.
This time the drama didn’t even wait for the race to start. Heldt jumped the start from second, while an equipment issue meant that Gallo didn’t get off the line at all – shaking the order up instantly.
Miyazono, who’d had a great start, soon found himself last on the road after an incident in the containers section. Labouteley was next to cycle down the pack, colliding with Drumont after aiming for a space that didn’t exist, but only ended up falling to seventh in a gaggle of seven cars all swapping places.
Seven became three when Sasaki and Kobayashi collided through the final corner — assisted by Labouteley. That allowed Drumont, Marco Busnelli, and Heldt to drag clear.
A dramatic final half lap saw Sasaki use push-to-pass to drag up to the front three and, under pressure from behind, Heldt tagged Drumont in the hairpin. Drumont was able to shrug that off to beat the American driver to the line, but it turned out to be academic as the stewards gave Heldt a one-second penalty.
That moved Sasaki up into second, and Busnelli to third, but Heldt would still qualify in the top four.
Grand Final
After all the tight racing, the final itself was remarkably one-sided. Starting on the soft tires, Fraga hit the front before the end of the first lap of the 30-lap grand final, and put on a masterclass.
Partly assisted by an early penalty for the only other soft-shod car, Heldt, Fraga built a huge 14-second lead before swapping out for mediums. Remarkably that went up to 20 seconds by the time everyone else had made their first stops, and although that trimmed out a bit as Fraga eventually fitted the hard tires he was still 14 seconds clear — and nobody could make in-roads.
That would be preserved right to the finish line — and actually increase again — despite the tire disadvantage, in one of the most dominant performances we’ve seen in a World Finals event; Drumont would claim second, nearly 16 seconds back, with Sasaki grabbing the final podium spot on the final lap from Beauvois.
As the Toyota event has always produced a World Series champion in the same year, Fraga’s devastating pace in the final will make him a favorite to claim one or both championships this coming weekend.
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