Seno and Velasco delivers 1-2 punch for Toyota Team Cebu

CEBU, Philippines - Toyota Team Cebu (TTC) came out of the hole as its drivers finished as champion and first runner-up in the highly competitive Sporting Class during Race 2 of the Vios Cup 2017 Leg 1 at the Clark International Speedway in Pampanga over the weekend.

Lord Seno and Sean Velasco, who both qualified a dismal 9th and 10th, respectively, in an 18-car grid, struggled to get adapted to a very hot track.

“We could not find pace as our tires easily overheated. We had to climb up the grid in Race 1 and hope that in the afternoon, it would cool down as we have pace when it’s a bit cooler,” Seno said.

Seno stormed from 9th to 5th at the start with Velasco trailing from 11th to 6th.  A race incident in Lap 4 left the 3rd, 4th and 5th cars out of the race. This gave Seno 3rd place with Velasco at 4th. Both were already in striking distance of winning.

The lead driver, Henderson Perez, and the 2nd place driver Mark Sy, who both drive in the Philippine Touring Car Championships, held on to the lead until the final lap when Sy made a mistake while trying to overtake Perez.  This gave Seno the perfect opportunity to pounce and grab to places to take the lead with 8 corners to the finish line.  Velasco, brought his a game and slingshot past Sy and Perez to take 2nd place.

The leading four cars crossed the line .500(  five hundredths of a second) from each other in what was the most thrilling and entertaining race of the weekend.

“We did not expect this. We were fast in the cooler weather but we did not expect to win. We were already happy with a podium place as we had a very difficult weekend in qualifying,” said Velasco.

Third TTC driver Oscar Suarez managed to finish 8th and then was elevated to 6th in race 2 after a few string of penalties was awarded to other drivers for excessive bumping.

Bobby Pangilinan, the lone representative for TTC in the Promotional Class, struggled with the handling of his car in the hot weather but finished at 6th out of 28 in the grid. “We picked up valuable point today so he is okay, we gotta work on his race pace but basically we are there,” Seno added on his teammates performance.

TTC ace driver Jette Calderon was on his way to climbing up the grid in Race 1 when a racing incident in Lap 10 of the Super Sporting Top Class sent Calderon out of points contention.  He started last in Race 2 but could not recover his pace, owning to the lack of time to fully set up the car that got damaged by the crash.

TTC is poised to continue its winning formula and hopefully bring the other teammates to the podium by training harder for the 2nd Leg which will happen on June 9-11 still at Clark Speedway. (FREEMAN)