2012 Motegi Charity Race

The 2012 Motegi Charity Race was a 100 lap race around the Twin Ring Motegi oval and the first of two non-championship races held in Japan to raise funds for the devastating 2011 Japanese Earthquakes. It was won by Japanese driver Barii Mori.

Race Report

Qualifying

The 30 minute long qualifying session brought much frantic activity as the cars looked for clear space. In the end a quarter of a second covered the entire field with MRT supersub Phillippe Nicolas scoring pole position. Jari Kekkonen was on the outside of the front row in the ArrowTech car in a surprisingly strong showing for the team. Budweiser 500 winner Hagane Shizuka, in his first race for Sunshine Infiniti, was only 3 hundredths of a second away from pole but was only 6th on the grid behind Chris Dagnall.

Race

Early on and it was a four way tussle for the lead between polesitter Nicolas, Kay Lon, Hagane Shizuka and Douglas Mann with Mann eventually winning out to lead 32 of the opening 40 laps. Frank Zimmer was the first of the retirements by hitting the outside wall at turn 4 on lap 4 in what had been a quite weekend for the Australian. Nicolas followed suit soon after by hitting the wall at turn 2 whilst running second. There was a short period around lap 20 where it was on for young and old first Rhys Davies and Thomas De Bock got together in the midfield putting Davies out of the race and forcing De Bock to take a trip down pitlane. Richie White then hit the wall a few laps later with Phoenix McAllister collecting some of the debris forcing a stop for a new front wing. While all this was happening Sammy Jones' Renault engine cried enough in the last race ever of the Marlboro Jones team which added insult to injury in what had been a horrific week for the Englishman.

The race then settled into a rhythm before the two stoppers filed in between laps 33 and 40. By that stage Pippa Mann had made her way up to second behind older brother Douglas and was the first of the two Foxdales to pit on lap 39. Douglas came in next lap but the crew weren't ready for him which cost him half a lap and in hindsight a possible top 5 finish. The one-stoppers in the midfield were rubbing their hands with glee as Chris Dagnall found himself in the lead by over half a lap over the next one stoppers Jari Kekkonen and Barii Mori.

Dagnall was leading comfortably until heartbreakingly his Renault powerplant also blew up after the halfway point. Not that it mattered much to Lon had found the wall at this point and was out of the race. This left Kekkonen and Mori to battle it out for the lead whilst trying to lap some of the two stoppers who had already made their stops. Kekkonen led a few laps before Mori found a way past and he led until his stop on lap 65. Shinobu Katayama assumed the lead of the race in front of her home crowd for a few laps before she too made her pitstop which handed the lead to Aurelien Moll before he made a pitstop on lap 75.

Ashley Watkinson up to this point had been incredibly quiet by his standards in the HRT suddenly found himself in the lead of the race with 25 to go and seemed to be on track for the win. However Mori was driving like a man possessed and was catching him hand over fist. The two got into a battle for the lead before Mori got by with 10 to go and went on to win the race in front of his countrymen from 17th on the grid. Watkinson finished second while Nathanael Spencer in the MRT finished 3rd ahead of Tristan Jung and Kekkonen.

Classification

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid
1	12	Barii Mori	Kamaha-Ford	100	0:45:31.018	17
2	7	Ashley Watkinson	Holden	100	+1.784	4
3	4	Nathanael Spencer	MRT-BMW	100	+5.283	7
4	24	Tristan Jung	Trueba-Piaggio	100	+14.354	20
5	29	Jari Kekkonen	ArrowTech-Lamborghini	100	+23.379	2
6	38	Douglas Mann	Foxdale-Hart	99	+1 LAP	9
7	30	Daniel Martins	ArrowTech-Lamborghini	99	+1 LAP	19
8	17	Aurelien Moll	Gillet ENB	99	+1 LAP	12
9	39	Pippa Mann	Foxdale-Hart	99	+1 LAP	16
10	40	Shinobu Katayama	Sunshine-Infiniti	99	+1 LAP	8
11	19	Dave Simpson	Minardi-BMW	99	+1 LAP	18
12	28	Thomas De Bock	Gillet ENB	99	+1 LAP	15
13	12	Phoenix McAllister	Phoenix-Honda	99	+1 LAP	22
14	32	Damon Cannon	CR-Ford	99	+1 LAP	21
15	41	Hagane Shizuka	Sunshine-Infiniti	98	+2 LAPS	6
Ret	14	Chris Dagnall	Jones-Renault	54	Engine	5
Ret	11	Kay Lon	Kamaha-Ford	47	Accident T4	3
Ret	33	Richie White	Lotus-Judd	23	Accident T2	14
Ret	13	Sammy Jones	Jones-Renault	21	Engine	10
Ret	8	Rhys Davies	Holden	18	Collision	13
Ret	3	Phillippe Nicolas	MRT-BMW	9	Accident T2	1
Ret	42	Frank Zimmer	ZimSport-Holden	4	Accident T4	11