With wins for Lexus and Ferrari earlier in the season, a trip to Tokyo for Round 3 of the Gran Turismo World Series Manufacturers Cup netted a victory for Kanata Kawakami.
In person at the Theater Milano-Za in front of a capacity crowd, one driver per team from the related region would participate. That meant just over 83 per cent of the grid was from the home nation, the remaining two drivers Brazilian.
All three drivers (and therefore regions) will be reunited for the World Finals later this year in Amsterdam.
Once again using Gran Turismo 7, but with the Fanatec DD Extreme steering wheel for the first time (replacing the Gran Turismo DD), it was Kawakami who claimed pole position around the Mount Panorama Motor Racing Circuit.
Lexus’ entrant was just 0.1s ahead of double Manufacturers Cup champion Takuma Miyazono and it was the battle between these two drivers that would frame the event.
The Subaru driver elected to start on the hard compound rubber, dropping back at the start of the 22-lap race, leaving the Lexus (on softs) to stretch an early five-second lead and avoid the battling behind.
However, each competitor had to cycle through each of the three mandatory tyre compounds, meaning it was not always clear who was fighting who until the latter stages
Miyaznono for Subaru and Seiya Suzuki for BMW dropped to the rear of the field at the end of the third lap, ditching the hard compound early on.
Meanwhile, upfront, Kawakami switched from softs to mediums at the end of lap six, rejoining ahead of a charging Miyazono.
The Lexus pitted at the end of lap 17 one final time to select the slowest type, hards, while the Subaru was on mediums at the same stage. Despite Kawakami scraping the wall at Reid Park, he held on to score the manufacturer’s second win of the season, vaulting it to the top of the points standings following Igor Fraga’s Round 1 triumph.
It was Porsche who led the standings coming into this round but Arthur Mosso and Ferrari driver Jun Hashima tripped over each other throughout, the scarlet car at one point ending up in the wall.
On a similar strategy to Subaru, Suzuki ended up in third at the end of the race – but unlike Miyazono had to fight through rivals near the end of the race. First, he passed Soki Nabetani at The Chase, then around the outside of Ryota Kokubun at Quarry Bend.
It all meant that Porsche slipped to second, with BMW in third ahead of the title-deciding final round, 6th-8th December.
Gran Turismo World Series 2024, Round 3, Tokyo, Manufacturers Cup race results
- Kanata Kawakami – Lexus – 22 laps
- Takuma Miyazono – Subaru +2.281
- Seiya Suzuki – BMW +3.816
- Ryota Kokubun – Mazda +6.693
- Tomoaki Yamanaka – Toyota +7.351
- Soki Nabetani – Honda +7.561
- Yuito Sasaki – Genesis +10.518
- Lucas Bonelli – Mercedes-AMG +10.734
- Shota Sato – Audi +17.615
- Yusuke Goto – Chevrolet +22.838
- Jun Hashima – Ferrari +24.719
- Arthur Mosso – Porsche +25.088
Gran Turismo World Series 2024, Manufacturers Cup standings after Round 3
- Lexus – 13 points
- Porsche – 9 points
- BMW – 8 points
- Mazda – 7 points
- Honda – 6 points
- Ferrari – 6 points
- Subaru – 5 points
- Toyota – 3 points
- Genesis – 3 points
- Mercedes-AMG – 3 points
- Chevrolet – 0 points
- Audi – 0 points
