Japan’s Kakeru Okunuki sealed the inaugural Yamaha R3 bLU cRU Asia Pacific Championship at The Bend Motorsport Park in South Australia with a peerless Race 1 performance. His closest championship rivals, Ryan Larkin, Sakchai Konduangdee and Tanakit Tubtimon were unable to lay so much as a glove on the 17-year-old from Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture as he stroked his way to his fifth win in 11 starts. His winning margin of 1.781 seconds was recorded after he had eased off on the last lap. The win followed crushing performances in free practice and qualifying, despite the best efforts of his rivals. The Japanese rider led qualifying from the second flying lap to claim pole with a time of 2:13.898, a full second clear of Australian wildcard Hunter Corney and Tanakit Pratumtong, who were separated by less than two hundredths of a second. Kakeru’s closest championship rival Ryan Larkin came through to lead the second row from Haydn Fordyce and Theppitak Kraiyafai. Sakchai Kongduangdee, another rider who had come in with a decent mathematical tilt at the title was seventh fastest. The Thai was joined on the third row by Zain Doblada from The Philippines and another wildcard, Ethan Johnson.
Kakeru made a good start, but found himself trading elbows Tanakit, Larkin and Sakchai, who had launched brilliantly from row three, as they tipped into Turn 1. Corney, starting his first race on an R3 found himself with work to do after a poor getaway. Kakeru looked like a man with a plan as he stretched to lead to more than a second at the end of lap 1 from Tanakit, Fordyce and Larkin. Sakchai looked to have mechanical problems as he dropped back through the field.
As Kakeru stretched his lead and Tanakit, Larkin and Fordyce scrapped over second, 13-year-old Corney became the fastest rider on track as he passed a fading Larkin and closed in on the podium battle ahead. Larkin was in a lonely fifth ahead of Zain Doblada and Ethan johnson. Further back there was an entertaining tussle for eighth featuring Moses Reyes and Mytchell Ngo from the Philippines, and Natthakorn Kammayee, Anak Waichalard and Supakarn Phasuraphonkul from Thailand.
The contest of the race, ensued when Corney moved up to make it a four-way fight for second in the last three laps. After some edge-of-the-seat position swapping, the diminutive Australian proved that size matters by out-dragging Fordyce on the uphill run to the final turn and held his advantage to the line.That left Tanakit fourth, 11 seconds clear of Larkin. Doblada was a further 10 seconds back in sixth. Ethan Johnson came through seventh, and the battle for eighth was won by Mytchell from Natthakorn, Reyes, Anak and Supakarn.
With 20 points for the win, Kakeru lifted his tally to 151 from Larkin’s 126.5, confirming that the championship was his. Behind the Australian, Tanakit is on 119 and Sakchai on 113, leaving an open fight to decide the runner up position in Race 2. The newly minted champion has an exciting 2025 ahead as he has earned himself full support to compete in the Yamaha R3 bLU cRU FIM World Cup, which is held in conjunction with the FIM Superbike World Championship.
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