Kyojo Cup: Aimi Saito takes hard-fought first win of the season

In the second round of the KYOJO Cup season, Aimi Saito won the Kyojo Sprint, ahead of Miki Onaga and Rio Shimono, following a hard-fought battle with the latter in the early stages.

Ph: Kyojo Cup

After taking a last-minute pole position and losing the lead at the start, Aimi Saito performed a superb drive to re-take the lead before the halfway mark and kept Miki Onaga at bay for her first win of the season in the Kyojo Sprint.

Saito's weekend seemed to be on the up, having set the overall fastest lap in both days of practice as, unlike the previous round, the weekend started off in dry conditions. Track conditions only improved for qualifying, enabling Saito to take pole ahead of Onaga, who had been given a three-place grid penalty for going off-track, and Rio Shimono.

As Onaga started in fifth, Hana Burton was promoted to third and Itsumo Shiraishi to fourth, the rest of the top ten remained unchanged. Cerumo/INGING teammates Kokoro Sato and Riona Tomishita qualified sixth and seventh, while Miku Ikejima delivered TGM's best qualifying in the series by taking the eighth fastest time, ahead of Ayumu Nagai and Rami Sasaki.

In the race, Shimono overtook Saito around the outside of Turn 1 to take the lead, as Onaga wasted no time to overtake Shiraishi for fourth at the Dunlop chicane. The AiWin driver then fell into the clutches of Sato, whose ambitious move at Turn 1 the following lap paid off, sending Shiraishi back to sixth.

While Onaga overtook Burton for third at the Dunlop chicane, Saito had began attempting to re-take the lead from Shimono, but the Dr.Dry driver successfully defended her attacks as they started lap three.

However, Shimono's defence came to an end after a mistake at the final corner enabled Saito to get alongside her and pass her for the lead before the first corner. As this happened, Shiraishi took back fifth in a last-minute move on Sato at the penultimate corner. However, Sato overtook the AiWin driver on the main straight not long after.

Shimono then fell to third on lap five as she was passed by Onaga before Turn 1. As the KCMG driver was setting fastest laps and began catching up Saito, cameras turned to Burton, who was stopped outside of the Dunlop chicane with a broken front wing. The American eventually restarted the car and drove back to the pits to retire from the race.

As the main pack began to spread out, the battle for tenth intensified with two laps to go, as Mako Hirakawa passed Kilei Kanemoto on the main straight to get into the top ten. Behind them, Marie Iwaoka overtook Sitarvee Limnantharak around the outside of the Dunlop chicane to take 11th as they began the final lap.

Up ahead, Saito took her first win of the season, with Onaga and Shimono joining her on the podium. Just outside the podium, Sato and Shiraishi held off Nagai to round out the top five, while Tomishita and Ikejima in seventh and eighth, rounded out the points-paying positions.

Sasaki ended the race ninth, ahead of Hirakawa, who held off Kanemoto and Iwaoka for tenth. Behind Iwaoka were Limnantharak, Ryu Yamamoto, Maaya Orido, Yuika Hosokawa, Reina Amaya, Kelsey Pinkowski and Emily Zhao, who was the last car to cross the line.