- WORLD FINALS
- Fraga Loses at Home as Japan's Tomoaki Yamanaka (yamado_racing38) Takes Race 2!
- FIA Gran Turismo Championships 2018 World Finals / Nations Cup
- 25/11/2018
Race 2 took place at Interlagos - Igor Fraga (IOF_RACING17)'s home circuit.
As widely expected, Fraga (IOF_RACING17) made the perfect start, building on his Race 1 victory by sealing pole position in his F-Type Gr.3.
On the home straight of the second lap, Japan's Tomoaki Yamanaka (yamado_racing38), driving an M6 GT3, used the slipstream of Adriano Carrazza (CRT-Didico15)'s NSX, and moved up to second place. Australia's Cody Nikola Latkovski (Nik_Makozi), driving a Vantage GT3, moved up to third.
Yamanaka (yamado_racing38) and Latkovski (Nik_Makozi) were involved in a fierce tussle for second place, but Latkovski (Nik_Makozi) was putting a lot of strain on his tyres and soon found himself also having to deal with the threat from the 911RSR of Spain's Coque López (Williams_Coque14), who was just behind him in fourth place.
The leading pack took a pit stop on the fourth lap. Fraga (IOF_RACING17) was first out of the pit lane, but mistimed his reentry badly. He got caught up in traffic and squandered all of the time margin he had build up.
Yamanaka (yamado_racing38) saw his chance and seized it, moving right onto Fraga (IOF_RACING17)'s tail.
Though both drivers had switched to medium tyres at the same time, the fact that Fraga (IOF_RACING17) was leading and therefore had to take a defensive racing line meant that his tyres were under more pressure than Yamanaka (yamado_racing38)'s.
The decisive moment came on the final lap. On turn seven Yamanaka (yamado_racing38) spotted that Fraga (IOF_RACING17) had taken a slightly wide line, and seized his opportunity to move into the lead.
Things would get worse for Fraga (IOF_RACING17), too, as he ended up being overtaken by both López (Williams_Coque14) and Latkovski (Nik_Makozi) to end the race in fourth place.
Yamanaka (yamado_racing38) had succeeded in beating Fraga (IOF_RACING17) on his home circuit, where he had been heavily tipped to win. The crowd had gone wild as the underdog had seized his moment at the last and secured victory.
