Andrea Caldarelli accomplished his mission at Fuji Speedway, in the fifth round of the 2014 Super GT season. The Pescara-born man, sharing a LEXUS RC-F with Daisuke Ito, captured more valuable points to back his championship effort and managed to retain the lead he had reclaimed in the previous round at Sugo. Running with 98 kilos of compensation ballast and a turbo restrictor that hampered the car's power, Andrea saw his Japanese team-mate settle for the 7th row in qualifying, but almost made a miracle on Race Day. As usual, Andrea drove the car for the start and in the opening stint. He recovered thoroughly up to the 12th place before the safety-car was sent in due to heavy rain.

As the mountain venue was hit by a storm, the stewards even decided to red-flag the run until conditions went back to normal. At the re-start, Caldarelli continued to make up ground, fighting back to the fourth spot and showing great driving skills and maturity. Unfortunately, about 20 seconds were lost at the driver change with Ito coming back on-track in 9th. He held the same spot when the checkered flag fell, again in safety car conditions.

Andrea Caldarelli

“With a dry racetrack, it wouldn't have ended up differently. With the restrictor and compensation weight, our car loses 1 and a half second, which cuts us off in qualifying. So from now to the end of the championship we have to look for regularity and consistency during the races. I'm still a bit disappointed because with the rain we had managed to compensate the handicap with our driving craft. We're leaving Fuji with a four-point margin and the next race will be the 1000KM of Suzuka, an event that pretty much decided some of the previous seasons. We'll go in damage limitation mode in qualifying and push on race consistency in order to score more good points for the championship”.