Kyojo Cup: Rio Shimono takes fifth win in a row in final Kyojo Sprint of the season
- MARCO ALBERTINI
- 9 minutes ago
- 2 min read
In the final round of the Fuji-based Kyojo Cup, Rio Shimono scored her fifth consecutive win in the Sprint race in dominant fashion, ahead of Miki Onaga and Aimi Saito.
In the final round of the Fuji-based Kyojo Cup, Rio Shimono scored her fifth consecutive win in the Sprint race in dominant fashion, ahead of Miki Onaga and Aimi Saito.
After being crowned Kyojo Cup champion during last month's round, Rio Shimono scored a dominant seventh win of the season, as Miki Onaga and Aimi Saito joined her on the podium.
Shimono dominated the 10-minute qualifying session to put herself on pole for the penultimate race of the season by 0.216 seconds over Saito, who was the only driver to set a lap time under a minute and 45 seconds.
From pole, Shimono led at the start from the rest of the pack as Onaga overtook Saito for second shortly before the first corner. Behind them, Mako Hirakawa and Itsumo Shiraishi collided at Turn 3, triggering a multi-car pile up that took out seven cars on the spot. As Shiraishi spun with a broken rear left suspension, a group of cars that included Riona Tomishita, Ayumu Nagai, Kilei Kanemoto, Miku Ikejima, Flame Arikkala and Kelsey Pinkowski all had separate collisions as they tried to avoid Shiraishi's spinning car.
As a result, the safety car was deployed until lap five, with the green flag only being displayed on lap six as Shimono led the way on the restart. On the following lap, Kokoro Sato passed Hana Burton for fifth at the first corner, as Marie Iwaoka did the same move on Sitarvee Limnantharak to take seventh.
Limnantharak then fell to ninth two laps later after she was passed by Ryu Yamamoto, and subsequently was also passed by Hirakawa after trying to recapture eighth.
Up ahead, Shimono scored another lights-to-flag win ahead of Onaga and Saito, as Rami Sasaki finished fourth and Sato rounded out the top five. Burton held on to sixth, as Yamamoto was promoted to seventh after Iwaoka was given a five-second penalty for a dangerous overtake earlier in the race. Maaya Orido crossed the line in ninth, ahead of Limnantharak, Hosokawa and Zhao. Hirakawa originally finished ninth but was given a 30-second penalty for her earlier collision with Shiraishi.