By Nancy Knapp Schilke - Motorsport.com
Sora Racing won the final two-way battle at the end of the inaugural Asian Le Mans Series race on Saturday, taking the checkered flag in the team's LMP1 Pescarolo Judd was Christophe Tinseau after laps covering 126 laps on the 3.703 km (2.3 mile) Okayama International Circuit. Joining him in the celebration on the top step of the podium was co-driver Shinji Nakano.
Team ORECA-Matmut-AIM's Nicolas Lapierre and Loic Duval had to settle for race one's final outcome, missing the victory by nearly seven seconds but there is always Sunday's second race of the weekend.
One lap down in third for the powerhouse P1 cars was the duo of Christian Bakkerud and liver Jarvis in the Kolles Racing Audi R10 TDi.
Oak Racing took the top honors in the LMP2 class, dueling with the Ibanez Racing team as they were the only two entries in the class for the first Asian LMS event.
Matthieu Lahaye had placed the Oak Racing Pescarolo Mazda on the pole -- the same position the team will hold for race two -- and ended up sharing the podium with his teammates Jacques Nicolet and Richard Hein.
Finishing second -- the two P2 teams covered 116 laps -- was a trio of racers for the Ibanez Racing Courage AER team: Jose Ibanez, Damien Toullemonde and Frederic da Rocha.
LMGT1 had their own show tonight especially when the pole winning Aston Martin DBR9 was stripped of all qualifying times after failing tech inspection (rear wing did not meet the regulations).
Larbre Competition's Saleen S7R inherited the lead spot but after 81 laps, they ended up out of the run for the gold in the land of the Rising Sun. That left JLOC to hold off the charging Hitotsuyama Team Nova Aston Martin.
Hiroyuki Iiri and teammate Atsushi Yogo landed the unique team, founded in 1993 by volunteers, the victory at their home race. [JLOC stands for Japan Lamborghini Owner's Club].
Takeshi Tsuchiya and Akihiro Tsuzuki started at the back of the grid and sliced their way through the slower LMGT2 cars to be one of the main contenders. Both GT1 cars completed 113 laps with JLOC taking the win and Hitotsuyama Team Nova ending second.
Also finishing 113 laps to the overall P1 leaders 126 laps covering the 500 km event were the top two LMGT2 finishers. Again, the Japanese fans saw a competitive show -- all classes had good battles in the first race, leading up to what we no doubt be a second tight fight on the unique circuit that has a lot of twists with a long back straight.
Today's winning GT2 team was the Felbermayr-Proton Porsche 911 GT3 RSR with two of the current Porsche works drivers. Marc Lieb and Wolf Henzler notched the victory, besting the Hankook Farnbacher team.
Dominik Farnbacher and Allan Simonsen had their work cut out for them in their Ferrari 430 GT since they started back in 19th on the grid. Taking second in the sprint endurance race after three hours gives them hope for Sunday's race.
Felbermayr-Proton had a double celebration, taking the final podium step were team drivers Christian Ried and Marco Holzer.
Sunday's race will start in the morning at 9:05am local time.
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