Members of Toyota Team Cebu led by team skipper Lord Seno (third from left) celebrate their successful stint in the second round of the Vios Cup last weekend in Muntinlupa City. contributed
Team skipper Seno leads Toyota Team Cebu’s sterling performance in leg 2 of Vios Cup
The Toyota Team Cebu once again brought glory to the Queen City of the South as they captured the Best Team award in the second round of the Toyota Vios Cup Season 5 that was held last weekend at the Manila South Circuit in Filinvest Alabang in Muntinlupa City.
Proving that their haul in the first round was no fluke, the Cebuanos raised the city’s banner up high by dominating the tricky street circuit.
At the forefront of the team’s stellar performance were team skipper Lord Seno and Brian Currie, who won the Sporting and Promotional class titles, respectively.
Seno also logged in the fastest lap time of the race with a time of 1 minute, 18.1 seconds. Fellow TTC member Oscar Suarez placed fifth.
In the Promotional class, Clive Fermin narrowly missed a podium finish by finishing in fourth while Bobby Pangilinan, who registered the class’ fastest lap time at 1:19.2, crossing the finish line in eighth place.
In the elite Super Sporting class, Jette Calderon took fifth place while compatriot Sean Velasco placed eighth.
Doubts
After the race, Seno disclosed that those two wins in the round’s final race proved to be the difference maker as they were still trailing the Toyota Balintawak Obengers after Race 1.
“I had doubts honestly after qualifying. But after Race 1, we sort of made a game plan. And luckily, everything fell into place at the last moment,” Seno said.
With the tricky and narrow street circuit giving Toyota Team Cebu its fair share of troubles, Seno said they all just focused up to get the job done.
“It took us a while to adjust to the street circuit. It’s narrow and full of barriers. One miss and you could end up hitting the wall. It needed 110-percent focus full time. With only two sessions of practice, we had to learn as fast as possible.”
“Qualifying didn’t go that well except for Bobby with the second place finish. But he had an engine penalty (10 places down). So I just told them to put their heads down and score points. We wanted to target either 6th or 5th so we would be in front of Race 2 via the top six reverse grid rule,” explained Seno.
The Cebuanos race once again in Round 3 on September 21 and 22 at the Clark International Speedway in Pampanga.
Although the team has an inside track at the overall team championship award for ruling legs 1 and 2, Seno said he doesn’t want the team to be too confident yet.
“We’re almost there but the last leg will be double the points, so we don’t want to be too confident,” he said.