The drama started on the warm up when JoJo Silverio stripped first gear and was unable to take the start. O’Hara led from Jones into turn one whilst behind Richard Joson made best use of the gap left by the absent Silverio to barge pass Mark Goddard, in the process deranging the latter’s front suspension. Enzo Pastor also passes Goddard in the confusion.
O’Hara build up a useful lead over Jones over the first few laps whilst Joson kept Pastor and Goddard bottled up behind him. Pastor sneaked by Joson at turn one in a ballsy pass whilst it took Goddard another lap to out brake Joson into the chicane. Goddard then dispatched Pastor one lap later and pulled away to what looked like a safe third place. Goddard then spun out of the race on the entry to the bus stop on lap six, around the same time that O’Hara clipped the tyres in the final turn allowing Jones to close in. O’Hara then lost his splitter and the unfortunate Don Pastor hit the offending item and slammed into the wall hard on the exit of the bus stop.
Jones was able to out brake O’Hara into the hairpin before the safety car was brought out whilst the stricken Pastor was attended to. The mess was too great to clear and the race ended under the safety car, Jones leading O’Hara and Enzo Pastor.
The Promotion Class ended in controversy after Tyson Sy overtook Dado Pena for the lead of the class at the hairpin. Pena reckoned the “full course yellow” for the safety car was already out whilst Sy swears there were no yellow flags. Pena then pitted for a reported engine problem and rejoined to finish 4th in class, behind Sy, Hermoso and Kenkou Miura.. Aaron Caratti split Sy and Hermoso on the road with a sick sounding engine, due to a cracked exhaust header.
Goddard and Silverio will start race two from the back of the grid whilst O’Hara will be desperate to take Jones. Race two should be interesting!
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