Asetek Simsports Visceral have crowned their Cup class championship with one last race victory at Suzuka in the HyperX Clubsport Series. It didn’t come with the championship winning car, but the result was in no doubt for quite some time before the end.
In the absence of any cautions, the race did spread out greatly towards the second half, but that didn’t mean there was an absence in action. Wave Italy Racing Team would take TCR pole, before an important Sport Qualifying session saw Hugh Jass 2nd, ahead of their championship rivals, HydroRace Geodesic Racing, who would start 7th.
In the Cup category, it would be Asetek Simsports Visceral with a front row lockout in the final Qualifying session of the season. The teammates would hold that lead on Lap 1, with Impulse Racing behind, while the other pole position teams held their leads too.
Hugh Jass’ race got off to a decent start, but in 7 laps, their first bit of misfortune struck. The famous kerb on the outside of Spoon curve had bitten them, spinning around their McLaren, and dropping them to 11th.
Similarly, HydroRace Geodesic Racing would have two incidents in the championship fight, first at Spoon, and the second was no fault of their own as they were tipped into a spin by a Porsche Cup car. This would see them end up two places behind rivals Hugh Jass.
And the drama would continue to come in Sport, as the race leader Alvar Gomez would later have a spin at Dunlop. His Fiercely Forward teammates in the #102, making its first appearance since Fuji, would take over the lead.
The battle for 2nd in Cup was fierce, with three-wide moments on the front straight among the highlights. All of this would allow the #97 Asetek Simsports Visceral car to build a lead that was nearly 20 seconds strong by the first round of pit stops.
Not long after those, Oli Peacock found himself in the wall at the hairpin after running 2nd overall, and this was the closest moment to a Safety Car all race, but it never came. The race would stay green, and the gaps between 1st and 2nd remained over 5 seconds in all three classes.
By Lap 40, the #101 Fiercely Forward Porsche was back at the front, overtaking their teammates who were heading a four car train. Further behind, Geodesic served a 5 second penalty for contact earlier in the race, giving Hugh Jass hope that they could make the 56 point turnaround.
However, with just 12 laps until the halfway points, an incident with Deutche Payments’ Porsche Cup car sent them spinning into the grass, and while it didn’t give them much damage, it meant they only gained 3 points on Geodesic at halfway. The penalty they received for not holding their line sent them further back to an irretrievable position.
The Sport class continued to deliver drama, as Alvar Gomez made a solo error from the lead for the second time in the race, this time into Turn 1. This dropped them to 4th, but Gomez once again found himself off the road at Spoon later, giving them an even steeper mountain to climb.
By halfway, the Cup and TCR class leaders were still the same, and the Sport class was still highly disputed. It would calm down until the final pitstops though, where the final chapter would be played out.
Fiercely Foward’s #102 found itself in the lead with Matias Orjuela being caught by GermanSimRacing, and Impulse Racing in 3rd. Impulse were able to run closest to the finish before making their stop, thus giving them the shortest time in pitlane, allowing them to jump ahead of GSR.
Fiercely Forward elected to change driver, putting the slightly quicker Beckham Jacir back into their car, costing them 30 seconds in pitlane. This meant they would come out third, and Impulse Racing would hold their slender advantage to win in the end, with Wave Italy Racing Team taking a rare IVRA lights-to-flag win in TCR.
Out front though, Asetek Simsports Visceral capped off a dream season with a third win, this time for the #97, and the biggest winning margin of any of the three championships. It could hardly have gone any better for a team with now half a decade of history.
That capped off a fantastic HyperX Clubsport Series for 2022/23. There’s now only one race remaining in IVRA for this season, the GT Sprint Series finale at Bathurst, where there is one last championship to be decided on Sunday.