Opinion - dubious red flags and confusion about whether full points would be awarded take the sheen off a dramatic Okayama SuperGT opener:
Even in qualifying, there was some controversy. Given the poor conditions, each 10-minute segment was expanded to 15 minutes to allow drivers more time to warm up their tyres. But with a little over five minutes left of the first segment of Q1 for the GT300 class, the red flags were shown as the rain got heavier still, and the session was not resumed.
The field was already behind the safety car at this point following an incident involving the #9 Pacific Mercedes and the #88 JLOC Lamborghini. But when the race was suspended, the cause was not immediately clear. The rain was certainly not heavy enough at this stage to warrant it, leaving the drivers baffled.
This was simply by virtue of having the pit box closest to the pit entry, allowing the team to complete its stop smoothly while its rivals all tripped over each other further down the pitlane. The biggest loser was the Team Studie BMW, which slipped from third to sixth amid the mayhem. As veteran Joao Paulo de Oliveira put it, the race had descended into a lottery.
At the time the race was finally called off, the leaders had completed 62 laps of a scheduled 82, representing the minimum cut-off of 75% for full points. However, when the official results were released hours later, the results were rolled back to 61 laps, prompting confusion over how many points would be awarded.
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