The FIA GT Manufacturer Series Season 2 got underway on July7th. The first round, a Gr.4 race, took place at Interlagos, and thegrid was packed with talented drivers.

Pole position in the first race was taken by Volkswagen’sOkumoto (HIROGRAND_1009), with defending Manufacturer Series champion Akagi_1942miqualifying in a disappointing sixth place. Akagi_1942mi is a master of racestrategy, however, and by sticking diligently to his plan, was able to moveinto the lead on the final lap.

Okumoto, who had led from the start, couldn’t reclaim topspot, and in the end was overtaken by Honda’s s-shohei and Mitsubishi’sko_sirrus87 as he dropped down to fourth.

Akagi_1942mi had emerged victorious from a tough race, andearned 431 points in the process. But that was not the only highlight of theopening round.

In theprevious matching, Australian driver Lee (PX7-AmazingHour), driving aHyundai, actually defeated Akagi_1942mi in their head-to-head—a dizzyingly gooddisplay of driving against his Japanese rival.

Akagi_1942mi skipped Rounds 2-5, dropping out of the top 16on the leaderboard in the process. Toyota’s tokari71, Subaru’s Kerokkuma_ej20 ands-shohei took advantage of this to score heavily and move into the toppositions.

In Round 6, Akagi_1942mi went pole-to-win to claim victoryand earn 409 points. In the matching that followed, however, Volkswagen’sV1_CRV-KRT86 held off the rest of the field to go pole-to-win himself, earning419 points.

Akagi_1942mi reappeared for Round 7 determined tore-establish his grip on the title, but the race was actually won by Lee—avictory that moved Hyundai up to fourth place in the series rankings.

Round 8 took place on the Tsukuba Circuit, and featured Gr.3cars—a tricky combination of speed and a short track. This is perhaps thereason why several of the leading drivers opted to sit the race out, with V1_CRV-KRT86going pole-to-win for a convincing victory.

V1_CRV-KRT86 was now on fire, and went on to win round 9 aswell, earning 424 points. This moved him to second place, and closed the gap on Akagi_1942mi at the top of theleaderboard to just ten points.

V1_CRV-KRT86 was therefore hoping for an upset in the finalrace of the season, but a disastrous qualifying saw him start in 13thplace on the grid, going on to finish in 18th place in the raceitself—a result that meant he could add no more points to his total.

It also meant that Akagi_1942mi had won Season 2, a secondtitle on the trot after his success in Season 1.

Overall, Akagi_1942mi’s was as convincing as we have come toexpect. However, V1_CRV-KRT86’s form in the second half of the season was alsomightily impressive, and we can look forward to some exciting clashes betweenthe two in the future.

Rank	Driver	DR	SR	Rd. 1	Rd. 2	Rd. 3	Rd. 4	Rd. 5	Rd. 6	Rd. 7	Rd. 8	Rd. 9	Rd. 10	Total
1	Mazda Akagi_1942mi	A+	S	431	-	-	-	-	409	399	-	407	-	1646
2	Subaru Kerokkuma_ej20	A+	S	387	407	402	-	-	401	-	-	-	-	1597
3	Toyota tokari71	A+	S	371	410	157	410	384	390	234	381	-	315	1594
4	Honda s-shohei_	A+	S	413	373	361	404	370	384	301	379	318	-	1580
5	Hyundai PX7-AmazingHour	S	S	422	356	120	320	368	-	416	230	194	373	1579
6	Toyota yamado_racing38	S	S	387	390	367	387	401	-	-	-	-	-	1565
7	Volkswagen V1_CRV-KRT86	A+	S	-	322	245	-	-	419	-	394	424	118	1559
8	Nissan anchovy__sand	A+	S	337	-	413	-	299	392	401	99	326	347	1553
9	Volkswagen HIROGRAND_1009	S	S	377	407	209	339	-	358	-	361	406	-	1551
10	Aston Martin Adam_2167	A+	S	354	376	420	376	209	339	317	378	123	291	1550