Okayama Report

Boardman shares in Independents Teams Title Glory

The combination of the Special Tuning run Tom Boardman and the SunRED run Tom Coronel has secured the Independents Teams title for 2009 for the SunRED entered SEAT Leon TFSI's, after both drivers secured top 4 finishes in both races in Japan. 

In adverse weather conditions,  with heavy rain soaking the racetrack, Tom Boardman scored two Independents Championship 4th place
 finishes at Okayama, the penultimate event of the season. It was a difficult Sunday for the 26 year old, as he strayed onto the grass coming into the Moss "S" corner during the morning warm-up session that left the Special Tuning (UK)  team with plenty of work ahead of the first race.
“The grass was wet and slippery. I thought I was managing to avoid the tyre-wall. I nearly did it, but eventually I crashed and spun. My mistake!”

The repair work was completed effieciently and in plenty of time ahead of the lunchtime races. 

After a week of warm sunny days, the forecast rain arrived shortly before the start of Race 1, and was soon deemed bad enough to start the race behind the Safety Car. The green flag was waved after 2 laps, and despite the tricky conditions there were no major incidents, although a couple of drivers did suffer spins or minor off-track excursions from which they recovered. Having suffered the disapointment of qualifying down in 8th place, it was a good drive to by the Lancashire driver to get the ClubSEAT.co.uk and Special Tuning UK  backed car through to 4th place on a track that wasn't keen to accept cars driving offline, making overtaking difficult.

With the Clerk of the Course deciding to left Race 2 start with its normal standing start, despite a further heavy downpour with the cars on the grid, and conditions certainly no better than for Race 1, Tom had a difficult run down to the first corner as the rear wheel drive BMW's were all able to get the power down much better. Good progress further round the lap however, partly due to a number of cars running wide on the very wet track as the drivers tried to assess the grip levels, had the black Leon briefly running in the top 10 overall. However despite a diff change during the 10 minute repair peroid between the races, the car wasn't able to give Tom the drive he needed out of the corners and was unable to defend against some of the leading cars as they recovered from their earlier mistakes. Tom ended the race as 4th Independent, and although missing out on a podium finish for the first time since Porto back at the start of July, it was more solid points again confirming him as the highest placed driver in their first season at this level.

Next races, the final rounds of the Championship, will be on the streets of Macau 19th - 22nd November.