The Audi Team DreamDrive won the TCR class in the Fuji 24 hours, third round of the Super Taikyu; this was also the maiden victory in the series for the Audi RS3 LMS car.
The #75 Audi started from the back of the grid, but maintained a consistent pace throughout the whole race and took the lead in the 17th hour; Toshiro Tsukada, Yoshikazu Sobu, Yuji Kiyotaki, Kazuyuki Matsumoto, Yukihiro Yamaji and Tadashi Watanabe took turns at the wheel and built a comfortable margin. At the end of the race their advantage was of 22 laps ahead of the #97 Modulo Racing Honda Civic of Tadao Uematsu, Shinji Nakano, Hiroki Otsu, Takashi Kobayashi and Keishi Ishikawa. The Civic had led until the 16th hour before dropping down after losing 25 laps in the pit because of a broken wheel hub.
The #10 Volkswagen Golf GTI of Racingline Performance shared by Phillippe Devesa, Shogo Mitsuyama, Mitsuhiro Endo and Jyuichi Wakisaka had set the pace in the first half of the race, but retired from the lead in the 11th hour for the consequences of an incident.
Third place went to the BRP Audi #19 of ‘Hirobon’, ‘Yossy’, Kei Akiyoshi, Koichi Okumura, Daisuke Yamawaki and Masanobu Komiya that had been plagued by misfire problems in Qualifying.
In the TCR Class standings, the #97 Honda retained the lead with 87 points; the Team DreamDrive Audi cars #45 and #75 lie second and third, with 53 and 52 points.
The Super Taikyu’s fourth round will be at Autopolis on 14/15 July.
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