Kyojo Cup: Miki Onaga wins, takes points lead
- MARCO ALBERTINI
- Jul 20
- 3 min read
In the fourth race of the 2025 KYOJO Cup, KCMG's Miki Onaga took her first win of the season, ahead of Aimi Saito and Rio Shimono, and leaves the second round as the new points leader. Hana Burton had a stellar race from last on the grid, gaining 12 positions to finish eighth in the KYOJO Final.
Okinawa native Miki Onaga is the new Kyojo Cup points leader after winning the second ever Kyojo Final ahead of race one winner Aimi Saito and main title rival Rio Shimono.
As race one's results made up the grid for the Final, Saito started on pole and led the field at the start, while Ayumu Nagai and Miku Ikejima made great starts from sixth and eighth, to jump up to fourth and fifth ahead of the first corner.
Behind them, Ryu Yamamoto and Reina Amaya spun at the Dunlop corner, bringing out the safety car as Maaya Orido and Kelsey Pinkowski also hit trouble and fell down the order. As the safety car came out on track, Amaya retired in the pits with a broken front wing.
On the restart on lap four, Onaga took the lead from Saito before the first corner and was able to hold her lunge off at Coca Cola corner to maintain the lead. On the same lap, Riona Tomishita went around the outside of Ikejima at Dunlop corner to take fifth place, as the TGM driver was also overtaken by Itsumo Shiraishi and fell to seventh by the end of the lap.
Ikejima continued to fall down the order, as on the very next lap, she was passed by Kokoro Sato at Turn 6 and was sent back to her starting position. Behind them, Marie Iwaoka went on the inside of Mako Hirakawa at Turn one, but as both drivers ran wide, Hana Burton overtook them both to get up into 11th.
On lap seven, Kilei Kanemoto and Rami Sasaki collided at Dunlop, leaving the latter with front wing damage as the former spun at the penultimate corner, enabling Burton to overtake both to get up into ninth.
By this point, the American was on a roll, after gaining six positions on the opening lap after starting last, she overtook three more cars on the restart before Kanemoto and Sasaki's collision and was now catching up to Ikejima. Just three laps later, Burton made a brave move around the outside of Turn 1 to take eighth away from Ikejima to seal a brilliant drive from 20th to eighth in just ten laps.
With two laps to go, Shiraishi tried to take back fifth place from Tomishita, but as she ran wide on corner exit, she was overtaken by Sato and fell back to seventh.
As the checkered flag waved, Onaga held off Saito to take her first win of the season, with Shimono rounding out the podium. Nagai held on to fourth, ahead of the Cerumo/INGING duo of Tomishita and Sato who finished fifth and sixth, respectively. Shiraishi ended the weekend in seventh, one place ahead of a stellar Burton in eighth, as Ikejima and Iwaoka rounded out the points-paying positions.
Sitarvee Limnantharak was just one second off her first point of the season in 11th, ahead of Hirakawa, Orido, Hosokawa and Kanemoto who rounded out the top 15. Zhao closed out the weekend with a 16th-place finish, ahead of Pinkowski, Yamamoto and Sasaki as the last cars to cross the line.
