Takahashi, Marcelo split honors in karting kickoff

MANILA, Philippines - Reo Takahashi of Kuwayama Racing and Stefano Marcelo of Maranello-Marcelo Racing split karting honors at the start of the 2010 Pagcor KF2-KF3 Cup Series at the Carmona Circuit Philippines in Carmona, Cavite recently.

Takahashi turned back Juha Turalba to rule the KF2 division of the event sanctioned by the Automobile Association Philippines and sponsored by Pagcor and Aeromed.

Takahashi pulled a big dive to wrest the lead from Turalba with three laps to go then went on to clock 14 minutes and 29.309 seconds for the victory.

Turalba came in second 0.209 of a second behind.

Malaysian Senna Sulaiman Noor took third place while Tsubasa Takahashi and Jet Racing’s Javi Benitez wound up fourth and fifth, respectively.

Marcelo, slowed down by spark plug problems in the first race, mounted a big comeback in Race 2 of the KF2 class to level the score for the Philippines.

The two-time Karter of the Year stamped his class as he controlled the tempo from start to finish, completing the 20-lap race in 14 minutes and 25.004 seconds, 2.672 seconds ahead of Takahashi.

Turalba checked in third while Benitez and Andres Calma of Full Throttle Racing ended up fourth and fifth, respectively.

“All it took was one simple problem to spoil our run in the first race. Fortunately, we were able to bounce back in the second race,” said Marcelo.