JCTC: Round 5 results 97-10-05

ALL-JAPAN GT CHAMPIONSHIP

Pedro de la Rosa wins his 2nd GT race of the season and takes the lead, also in the All-Japan GT Championship.

Best regards / Raimon Duran

Press Release 100 All-Japan GT Championship 97 Round 5 / Min 5 October 97

Pedro wins his second GT race of the season for Toyota - Castrol and moves closer to his second 1997 title !

Min (Jap-F3n) - Pedro de la Rosa and his usual team mate in the GT Championship, Michael Krumm, driving their works Toyota Team Tom's Supra Turbo sponsored by Castrol, have won their second race of the season and have taken the lead in the All-Japan GT Championship with one round left.

Starting fifth on the grid, the Spaniard managed to move up the race to second during his stint, passing Kurosawa, Takeuchi and 1997 Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen before pitting for fuel and tyres. He then handled his Toyota Supra Castrol to Michael Krumm who left the pits already in first position after a neat refuelling pit stop wonderfully executed by Tom's crew.

This is the second win for the pair season, in five races. They now take the lead of the championship with one race left.

This season Pedro has already won the 1997 Formula Nippon Championship (JF-3000) and it can be said that he has not -almost- left the podium : this year he has competed in13 races so far (8 FN + 5 GT) and he has won seven (5+2), has finished 2nd three times (2+1), and 3rd twice (1+1). He had to retire in Rd.1 of the GT series while he and Krumm where running in second place...

Final Results - Rd 5 - Min GT Race (78 laps 252.63 km./ 156.9 miles)

1 - P. de la Rosa - M. Krumm Toyota Supra 97 TOM'S 1h.57'36.132 at 128.89 km/h 2 - K. Takahashi - A. iida Honda NSX Raybrig 1h.58'01.763 3 - M.Sekiya - T. Suzuki Toyota Supra 97 TOM'S 1h.58'04.813 4 - T. Kristensen - N. Nagasaka Toyota Supra 97 FET 1h.58'20.231 5 - K. Kaneishi - T. Takeuchi Toyota Supra 97 Cerumo 1h.58'49.996 6 - M. Hasemi - T. Tanaka Nissan Skyline JECS 1h.58'25.436

Up to 22 finishers.

Championship standings after 5 rounds out of 6

1- Pedro M. de la Rosa & Michael Krumm, 67 points. 2- Masami Kageyama, 63. 3- Masanori Sekiya & Toshio Suzuki, 54. 6-Tatsuya Tanigawa & Aguri Suzuki, 48 up to 40 positions.

Next & final GT race: October 26th - Sugo (R6)

Next race of Pedro : October 19th - R9 of Formula Nippon at Fuji Speedway.

For further information, please contact Raim=F3n Dur=E1n at: +34 3 211 2334 / +34 3937 7314 / rd.racingservices@filnet.es Pedro de la Rosa's full career details at http://www.filnet.es/delarosa