In the reverse grid race that opened the day’s action Australian star Gilmore fought his way past Rishon Rajeev at the start as the Indian struggled to the pack behind him. Sawer had to start from sixth and worked hard to move ahead of Anton who slipped down the ranks in a difficult weekend. It took a lot of hard work for Sawer to make his first move on first Niccolo Maccagnani and then Kyuho Lee who were quite determined there would be no easy overtakes on them this time.

The Indian polesitter Rajeev was next up and defended valiantly throughout the next ten minutes until Sawer made his move. Sadly the two ended up clashing as the Evans GP man moved ahead and they both slipped back behind Lee and Maccagnani. Worse was to come for Sawer as he would later receive a five second penalty for his part in the incident.

Elsewhere Thomas Yu Lee had a tricky race – first a startline infringement which cost him a drive through penalty, then crossing the demarcation line and receiving another, and then unluckily he would do so again and be excluded for multiple transgressions. In good humour, the American chalked it up to ‘lessons learned’. But he wasn’t the only one creating fireworks. Ben Nguyen duelled this time with Imran Putera and the Malaysian new boy tapped his team-mate into a pirouette at Turn 7 for which he too would receive a time penalty.

Sawer was still eager to show his skills and made audacious overtakes on first Maccagnani and then Lee to move into second on the road, but Gilmore up front was dominant and victorious to grab his second win of the year. Sawer would slip behind Lee and Maccagnani after his penalty but remain ahead of Rajeev and Anton. Wang Zhongwei stayed out of trouble for P7 as Nguyen recovered to 8th ahead of Putera, with Kareen Kaur, Worapong Aiemwichan and Joshua Berry completing the points scorers after Berry had to pit to repair a broken wing after an incident involving Wang.

The result meant Sawer’s chances of winning the title had been greatly reduced and were reduced further when he made a slow start from pole position in race three, allowing Italian driver Niccolo Maccagnani into the lead. What followed was a repeat of the battle from race one, only this time the rookie driver for Pinnacle Motorsport had learned a lot in their first encounter. This time he made Sawer work hard to overtake him and the battle was sensational.

Gilmore had failed to overtake Lee at the start and the BlackArts teammates Anton and Rajeev spent so long squabbling with each other in the early stages that the leading quartet were able to pull clear.

Sawer soon found his rhythm and was able to give Maccagnani enough pressure to make his move and when he grabbed the lead he was able to pull a gap large enough to be comfortable. The race was fairly stable after that and Sawer was able to take victory ahead of rookie winner Maccagnani with Kyuho Lee scoring his third and final podium of the year as he returns to Spain. Gilmore was able to finish in P4 to keep the title fight alive for two more weeks.

Ben Nguyen was able to fend off from Imran Putera whilst the battle for Wang Zhongwei and Thomas Yu Lee ended in the Chinese driver’s favour and he was even able to catch the young BlackArts racers just before the end. The final points finishes went to the Singaporean stars Kareen Kaur and Joshua Berry, with Worapong Aiemwichan completing the field.

Despite the championship still being open, in reality all Sawer has to do is score two points more in a fortnight when we return to Sepang, and he will become the champion of 2025.