Im happy with this result because it was the maximum we could extract out of ourselves for the week end with the Honda powered cars showing stronger performance. I had  a good start, jumped from 4th to 2nd. Izawa was leading (Docomo / Honda) and I managed to get ahead of the pole man, T. Kogure ( Nakajima / Honda). Not much happened until the first pit-stop, I was holding on quite well in 2nd at this point hoping this would change in a good way in the pits.

After the pit-stop, Izawa got a problem and was gone, unfortunately, Kogure passed me in the pits, he had a shorter stop. Form that point on, the chances to win were completely gone because the strong Honda Nakajima cars are just in another league. Kogure went 3/10 to 7/10 a lap faster then me. I pushed hard and was happy with the car but had to settle for second.

That was the maximum we could with our package. Good to be on the podium again!

Looking forward to end the season on a high at Sugo for the last FN race!

Congratulations to my old Team Nakajima Racing and my friend Loic Duval who just won the title before the end of the season! They just were the best this year!

//Click here for the Photos of the weekend by Toshikazu Moriyama//

Pushing and doing our laps…

caught up with some other riders on our last lap… easy cool down in the slipstream…

Team look with the best cycling wear from ASSOS.

we were cycling around Lake Saiko today and suddenly my front tire exploded like crazy with a big bang! Scary!

Was a shame cause we just caught up with a fast group of semi pro japanese riders, we were going @ 40km/h all the time, great fun and speed feeling! And just before we wanted to attack , we had to let them go…

Check out this super pro high end bike shop we found nearby… hahah

Hmm.. this was just one of these races where you go home disappointed…
We were doing a good job, hanging in there with our heavy car, lying 7th or 8th. Then towards the end, the safety car came out. The team reacted rally well and called me into the pits, it was right in our pit window for the last stop, so we also changed driver, perfect! The pit-stop was a bit hectic, the car caught fire but no drama, car was back on track without problems. The operation was great, we cam out right at the front in P2. After the restart it was not easy for Juichi to hold the faster, lighter cars, cars behind us, he got passed by the #3 Nissan GTR, then in 3rd place he lapped a slower GT 300 car and touched him a little with his back, both cars had to go a bit wide on the exit curb but no big loss, we lost one spot, nothing happened to the GT300 car. The situation was investigated by the stuarts and their discussion was to give us a drive thru penalty, in my opinion it was a total unprofessional misjudgment. A good result in this race would have massively boosted our tittle chances! After this we had to settle with P8. I was really disappointed with the stuarts decision, more and more with most of the other drivers we believe that their job is not done well, we worry about our sport being ruined, so much effort and motivation is being killed with their ignorance. I hope this will change soon.

Championship battle is still on! Fighting back for the next race at our home track in FUJI !!
Im back on track next week end in Autopolis for the FN race, After my win in Motegi we got a good boost so im looking forward to do well!

Race photos gallery

Juichi and me Chilling before the race, the team brought us the aircon with those tubes, needed it!

The big boss himself came to visit the race! Was good to see you Mr Akio Toyoda!

We already meet earlier this year and raced together at the Nurburgring 24h with the Lexus LF-A, was great experience for all of us! We had a lot of fun!

For the info, he is the president and CEO of Toyota Motor Corporation and is a grandson of founder Kiichiro Toyoda.

Ready to race!

RESULTS:

What a hot day over here! wow!

Today we qualified 7th, not a bad result considering we are the second heaviest car on the grid, carrying 78kg of ballast, making our car difficult to drive. The rule is: amount of points x 2 = weight handicap to carry. In our case, 39 points = 78Kg

For this race the qualifying system changed into a know out system. I did Q1 & Q2 and Juichi, my team mate did the Q3. The rules obliges you to use both drivers which is not bad for a change.  I think we both did well and made the best out of our situation. Also we had some evening free practice at night time which was cool, nice to get some endurance feeling with our Super Gt cars.

Tomorrow will be tough one for us, its a long race, 700km. And over the distance, it will be difficult to do well with this weight handicap, I could already feel our tires are suffering a bit during practice.

REULTS:

This my  biggest fan couple, they already baught my T’s, great! I saw a lot of other fans wearing it to, thanks for supporting me!

Ready to roll!

Got back in Tokyo well in the morning and already on a schedule with my trainer Helmut!

This is one of my favorite ways to train, we play ping pong rules with a small soccer ball on a tennis court (just the service fields), great game to combine everything. Wanna play?

Today we played at the Jingu Gaien Tennis courts, real nice spot in the heart of tokyo arround many other olympic, basball, golf and sport facilities.

On my way back from Europe to Japan I indulged myself with another short trip to Bali… I really like it there and also you got to live the good life sometimes right! My friends Eiji and JP where over there as well so it was a real cool trip for us, lots of action!

First we went to Lembongan for some paradise island feeling, and some surf, good training but dangerous stuff there for a beginner like me, bit shallow with the reef not far down…

Rented myself some old timer board… check the dents…hehe

Local boat is taking us right to the break! Easy! No need to paddle to much this time…

Ended up braking a fin, old timer board was fragile…

great view out of our spot

Back to the main Island, this is a up high view from a nice beach called Dreamland. More Surf…

enjoying the sunset and chilling after surf, not to many worries at this moment…

We all went to the Playboy mansion party @ Sentosa, a super nice villa resort, amazing design & architecture!

even got a shot with a Victoria Secret angel! Allesandra Ambrosio

This is the art team! the guys behind my t-shirts! It’s great to do it with them!  Never had to go to any office so far…

Craig on the left takes care of the screens and prints, real cool surfer dude, has its own brand to ( YOKII, Recycle or die)  and is a real independent artist living at the core of his passion, check it out!

Johnny blaze in the middle is the designer, got to hang out with him a bit more and Im glad I could meet him, nice person and also we could talk about some future projects I would like to do, keep the ball rolling and do some shirts!

Eiji on the right is my good homey from Tokyo and also the producer, the EMAT, we got a good friendship going for a couple years now, he actually started  this T shirts project for me! Its the 4th time i meet him while he’s in BAli, always good times to hang out!

That was the bikini party at KUDETA, nice event, lots of people having fun enjoying good music, nice sunset, spraying people with water guns or champagne…

Looks nice right? Well better know what you do out there! My friends said it would be fine…I should try some more surf!! Yeah right…I got the experience of getting hit by a monster like this on another beach couple days later, the freak set hit me 5 times in a row!! That was not funny, was fighting for my life like a warrior! Drained me for the day!

First time i got to experience a surf contest live! the RIP CURL CUP PADANG PADANG 2009!

Real cool and relaxed atmosphere! We could use some of that in the racing world!

Nice dinner at Sentosa! Check out Eiji on the right wearing my new shirt!

On the last day  before heading back to Japan, Teru from Japan came to see Eiji, have some fun and getting deeper into BALI! This means, no rest for the local EMAT… I say thank you for everything and taking us around bro, always great to hang out! Japan! Here we come… Got the big GT race in Suzuka this week end!

Back in europe for a quick family visit!
Might be a bit unusual to post about cows  but, hey… When im back home I see them everyday in front of our garden!

For some, like in India the cow is a holly animal… So lets give the cow some credit here… ok!

For us in europe its quite normal to see cows arround the country side, I grew up in 2 houses over my live so far and both of them were surrounded by cow fields. It was not unsual that we got surprised when a crazy one sudenly entered our garden…

We did it! What a fantastic day! At the start I took off like a rocket which put me in 2nd place after the 1st corner, the leader jumped the start and had to serve his penalty. After that I was leading with Loic Duval (#31 PIAA NAKAJIMA) pretty close behind me, just the 2 of us took off from the the rest of the field. So I knew the race was going to be between us. The Nakajima cars have been so much faster this year, about a second. Having him in my  mirrors worried me a bit, was tough, I kept pushing hard and I also chose to start heavier on fuel to make my pit stop shorter. This option worked well, after the pitstop the gap went up to 8 sec.! Still had to push hard for him not to come back with his rocket… finally it all worked out great! Everybody did a good job and I just feel so good to be on top again!

RESULTS:

Since we are all good friends with Loic & Ben making it to the podium to, we treated ourselves with a real good dinner back in Tolyo.

We started the day with some new set up options for the free practice session, trying to find a good direction and become faster… because we are still missing a full second compare to the unbeatable HONDA powered Nakajima cars! Unfortunately it didn’t work, at least we learned  it doesn’t work but we also lost, wasted, the limited free practice time to fine tune the car for the qualifying. Anyways in the end I came in 5th. Not magic, not tragic… For sure I’m targeting the podium tomorrow… Need lots of points after all this bad luck this year ! Wish me luck!

Wearing my new DITA sunglasses at the kids pitwalk…

RESULTS: