2015 Japanese Grand Prix

"They've failed to finish!" This article is a stub or is otherwise incomplete. You can help GPVWC Wiki by expanding it.

  2015 Japanese Grand Prix

Race details
Race 14 of the 2015 Superleague season
Date	10th September, 2015
Official name	2015 Japanese Grand Prix
Location	Suzuka Circuit, Suzuka
Course	Permanent racing facility 3.609 mi / 5.808 km
Distance	53 laps, 191.277 mi / 307.830 km
Weather	Sunny
Pole position
Driver	Alex Cooper	CSG Racing-Potentia
Time	1:27.516
Fastest Lap
Driver	Fran Lopez	Red Archer-Valiant
Time	1:28.308 on lap 52
Podium
First	David Fidock	Hawkeye-Potentia
Second	Philipp Puschke	Vod:Bul-Valiant
Third	Fran Lopez	Red Archer-Valiant

The 2015 Japanese Grand Prix was the fourteenth round of the 2015 Superleague season, taking place at Suzuka on 10th September. The Japanese Grand Prix had been the penultimate round since 2012 but was shuffled up the order for 2015, taking place a month earlier in the year.

Alex Cooper continued the good form of CSG Racing by taking pole, but the win would go to defending champion David Fidock, who was doing exactly all he could to outscore championship leader Philipp Puschke, whose Vod:Bul had started ahead of Fidock on the grid. It was Fidock's first win since Bahrain and a second win for the ever-popular Hawkeye team.

Crucially, however, while Nordsjoen's Agustin Canapino had finished second, just two seconds behind Fidock, post-race penalties saw him demoted to sixth, elevating Puschke to second, minimising his points lost to Fidock. Eventual third went to Fran Lopez in the Red Archer, who again showed his pace by notching the race's fastest lap. Though it seemed he might be falling into a pattern of always ending up fourth, this time a penalty helped him and he was eventually rewarded with his first top-three place since his victory in Turkey.

Fourth was pole-sitter Cooper, while close behind him was his team-mate Tom Parker, who had come up from eight on the grid. The next three drivers on the official results were Canapino, his team mate Florian Geier and Midnight's Tom van der Voort. As it happened, each of these drivers had been penalised with 10 seconds added to their race time; Geier for avoidable contact and the other two for dangerous driving. Such was the competitiveness of the top 6 that Geier and van der Voort did not lose any places with their penalties, whereas Canapino lost four.

Jordan Weekes was also penalised heavily for verbal conduct and was subsequently banned for one race.

Japan saw plenty of the customary driver swapping, although seats were largely beginning to settle, so close to the end of the season. At Edonis Engineering, its own merry-go-round of ever-changing drivers, which had been twirling since the end of the Italian Grand Prix, finally came to a stop. Jason Muscat was found firmly gripping hold of the #69 horse and would not let go for the rest of the season. It was the third team that Muscat had driven for, previously driving for Hawkeye and Red Archer, the latter as recently as Singapore. No other driver drove for as many teams during the season. Marcos Riffel was back on board the ride, having missed Singapore. Jordan Weekes was the only Torrent Motorsports driver present however.

Deividas Misiulis was back in the Red Archer, driving the car that Muscat had kept warm for him for over four races. However, Japan was the final time that Misiulis would race that year.

Woods Racing, who were undergoing a similar driver-rotation adventure to Edonis, saw former-Vod:Bul driver Morten Wernersen make his only Superleague appearance of the year, in the car otherwise driven by Sven de Vries. It was the last time that season that de Vries would miss a race. Wernersen finished 18th, one place ahead of débutant Rob Mason who was also making his one-off appearance of the year. Mason was driving for Nijo Racing as the second new driver since the retirement of Mikael Tuomaala after Italy.

Meanwhile, Mason's YTF1 boss, Matthew Allington, was making his fourth and final appearance for Kernow, replacing Bart De Vos for one last time.

Classification

Qualifying

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Time	Gap	Grid
1	13	Alex Cooper	CSG Racing - Potentia	1:27.516	—	1
2	14	Philipp Puschke	Vod:Bul - Valiant	1:27.638	+0.122	2
3	1	David Fidock	Hawkeye - Potentia	1:27.732	+0.216	3
4	19	Agustin Canapino	Nordsjoen - Martex	1:27.792	+0.276	4
5	27	Florian Geier	Nordsjoen - Martex	1:27.874	+0.358	5
6	15	Jernej Simoncic	Vod:Bul - Valiant	1:27.913	+0.397	6
7	21	Fran Lopez	Red Archer - Valiant	1:27.992	+0.476	7
8	24	Tom Parker	CSG Racing - Potentia	1:28.045	+0.529	8
9	25	Tom van der Voort	Midnight - Potentia	1:28.135	+0.619	9
10	7	Pedro Melim	Midnight - Potentia	1:28.225	+0.709	10
11	88	Jordan Weekes	Torrent - Potentia	1:28.407	+0.891	11
12	6	Deividas Misiulis	Red Archer - Valiant	1:28.459	+0.943	12
13	20	Dewald Nel	Green Stripes - Valiant	1:28.955	+1.439	13
14	4	Marcos Riffel	Edonis - Valiant	1:29.373	+1.857	14
15	69	Jason Muscat	Edonis - Valiant	1:29.386	+1.870	15
16	11	Ben Horrill	Green Stripes - Valiant	1:29.388	+1.872	16
17	9	Roy Schroten	Woods - Trinity	1:29.720	+2.205	17
18	5	Kenney Lybeer	Nijo - Trinity	1:29.793	+2.277	18
19	45	Kieran Ryan	Phoenix - Trinity	1:30.572	+3.056	19
20	2	Menno Klont	Hawkeye - Potentia	1:30.710	+3.194	20
21	12	Mark Wicks	Kernow - Trinity	1:30.856	+3.340	21
22	10	Rob Mason	Nijo - Trinity	1:31.315	+3.799	22
23	8	Morten Wernersen	Woods - Trinity	1:31.425	+3.910	23
24	46	Mikko Jakonen	Phoenix - Trinity	1:32.013	+4.497	24
25	83	Matthew Allington	Kernow - Trinity	1:32.460	+4.945	25

Race

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Pts.
1	1	David Fidock	Hawkeye - Potentia	53	20:43.497	3	25
2	14	Philipp Puschke	Vod:Bul - Valiant	53	+4.381	2	20
3	21	Fran Lopez	Red Archer - Valiant	53	+5.166	7	16
4	13	Alex Cooper	CSG Racing - Potentia	53	+10.116	1	13
5	24	Tom Parker	CSG Racing - Potentia	53	+11.868	8	11
61	19	Agustin Canapino	Nordsjoen - Martex	53	+12.919	4	10
72	27	Florian Geier	Nordsjoen - Martex	53	+28.587	5	9
81	25	Tom van der Voort	Midnight - Potentia	53	+43.439	9	8
9	7	Pedro Melim	Midnight - Potentia	53	+45.242	10	7
10	15	Jernej Simoncic	Vod:Bul - Valiant	53	+1:18.119	6	6
11	6	Deividas Misiulis	Red Archer - Valiant	53	+1:31.808	12	5
12	11	Ben Horrill	Green Stripes - Valiant	52	+1 Laps	16	4
13	69	Jason Muscat	Edonis - Valiant	52	+1 Laps	15	3
14	2	Menno Klont	Hawkeye - Potentia	52	+1 Laps	20	2
15	5	Kenney Lybeer	Nijo - Trinity	52	+1 Laps	18	1
16	45	Kieran Ryan	Phoenix - Trinity	52	+1 Laps	19
17	12	Mark Wicks	Kernow - Trinity	51	+2 Laps	21
18	8	Morten Wernersen	Woods - Trinity	51	+2 Laps	23
19	10	Rob Mason	Nijo - Trinity	51	+2 Laps	22
Ret	83	Matthew Allington	Kernow - Trinity	23	Did not Finish	25
Ret	9	Roy Schroten	Woods - Trinity	12	Suspension	17
Ret	46	Mikko Jakonen	Phoenix - Trinity	10	Accident	24
Ret	4	Marcos Riffel	Edonis - Valiant	7	Did not Finish	14
Ret	88	Jordan Weekes	Torrent - Potentia	1	Did not Finish	11
Ret	20	Dewald Nel	Green Stripes - Valiant	0	Suspension	13

Notes:

• ¹ — Agustin Canapino and Tom van der Voort both had 10 seconds added to race time for dangerous driving.
• ² — Florian Geier had 10 seconds added to race time for avoidable contact.

Standings after the race

• Bold text indicates who still has a mathematical chance of becoming World Champion.

Drivers' Championship standings

	Pos	Driver	Points
	1	Philipp Puschke	255
	2	David Fidock	225
	3	Lewis Redshaw	176
	4	Agustin Canapino	161
	5	Alex Cooper	151

Constructors' Championship standings

	Pos	Constructor	Points
	1	Vod:Bul-Valiant	348
	2	CSG Racing-Martex	317
	3	Nordsjoen-Potentia	286
	4	Hawkeye-Valiant	264
	5	Red Archer-Potentia	224

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

External links

• Official results
• Broadcast replay

Preceded by: 2015 Singapore Grand Prix	GPVWC Superleague 2015 season	Succeeded by: 2015 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
Preceded by: 2014 Japanese Grand Prix	Japanese Grand Prix	Succeeded by: 2016 Japanese Grand Prix