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Qualifying on Saturday was a 30 minutes session where everyone could spectate and warp back to the pits as often they liked. Sascha Riegler set the fastest laptime with a 2:39.420 ahead of Valtteri Pitkänen who managed to put his Vortex eSports FBM car into the 2nd grid spot with a last minute effort. Only 0.06 seconds seperated second to fifth place - third went to Virgil Mocanu ahead of Mantas Brazinskas and Dominik Engel.
The start progressed rather smooth. The only mishap was Krzysztof Jachna touching Juris Marcinkevicius in the midfield. After Mocanu overtook Pitkänen for second into turn 6, the Finn had to face attacks from all angles in the oval section of the track dropping back to fifth - only to gain those places again in the next few corners to climb back to third. Sam Holt who started from sixth on the grid could have been the big winner of the start if he did not had a tangle with Brazinskas which resulted in the Brit sliding into the barriers before the fast reversed 130R corner of Kyoto's high speed track. Apart from Engel passing Brazinskas for fourth at the end of the 2nd lap, there should not happen that much until the pit stops began.
In the midfield, the group of Vadim Nikiforov, Juris Marcinkevicius and Julien Schein providing action on the track whilst fighting for sixth position. At the end of the oval section, Marcinkevicius hit his fellow countrymen under braking forcing Nikiforov into a little slide and almost into the tyre stacks. This interaction between those two used the Belgian Schein to gain two position at once at the exit of the hairpin. At the end of the lap four, Nikiforov spun at the exit of the last corner falling back to ninth place.
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After Marcinkevicius completed his pitstop, he had to deal with Schein who was recovering from his spin on lap 9. The fight was short but intense with the pairing fighting for position in the fast middle sector. The two made contact in the fast turn 20 but both could continue with barely any time lost.
With four laps to go, Marcinkevicius suffered a left front puncture. This meant he had to crawl back to the pits without damaging the car. He exitted the pits right in front of Holt who had to make his pitstop already in lap 1 to repair his car due to the incident with Brazinskas. In the final lap, the two fighted fiercly for the final points position with the better end for the AirAttack #1 driver.
The next round takes place at Westhill International on the 13 March 2013.
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Pictures by Dominik 'Deutschland2007' Engel, text by Sascha 'Feuerdrache' Riegler