Benoit has been terribly busy with SGT and FN tests since his return to Japan at the end of January. By the time he blinked he was already at Suzuka for the first race of the 08’ season, the first with NISMO. The big pressure of “no mistake” and the win, were visible allover his shoulders.    Friday, Benoit is restless to get on the wheel but the torrential rain prevents risky moves. He decides to venture onto the track in the afternoon when the rain is softer. Luckily for the Qualifying the weather forecast is dry. He’s gotta a go in cold! Lets hope for the best!   Saturday, Benoit wakes up earlier then usual (a rare situation) and is wide-awake ready for the session, which ends with fastest lap. He is therefore the last challenger at the Super Lap. But was it because he woke up too early? The truth is he can’t stop yawning while watching the others challenge the SL. After the two warm up laps: “Here I go! Its SL time!” However, out of the 1^st corner Benoit looses concentration trying his best to stop a coming up yawing (hahha), loses the rear in the gravel of the second corner???…which finally wakes him up enough to start pushing. Needless to say he goal is the PP. Unfortunately it is impossible to retrieve the time missed in sector one so Benoit finishes in second position on the grid. Well, it’s better this way, or he might miss the green lights at the race start, because he has done it before at a FN race. All he’s gotta do is follow Michael at the start!       Sunday: another great spring day in paradise! The perfect day for a race! It is still cool outside and Benoit marks top time again in the morning warm up. Although the afternoon race temperature shall be another story. The tire battle seems promising. 2PM, it’s formation lap time! Benoit follows closely the PP for the entire tire-warm-up lap.The lights go green, the cars hit the gas, Benoit follows closely ready to catch the first overtaking opportunity, but believe it or not, after a couple of laps he’s got now numb foot.   Apparently the brand new racing socks are too big and got loose inside the shoe. It wrinkled around blocking the blood flow under his right foot. Benoit loses foot sensation. “Damn sock! I feel like stopping and pulling it up!” So the rest of the battle ended up being between the sock and him than them with Michael. By the end he was stepping on both the accelerator and the breaks simultaneously, ups! (I am seriously not kidding!)  So in these conditions Benoit is unable to overtake, although he never fails to keep right behind the top. On the 22^nd lap he pits in, Satoshi hops on and soon after leaving the pits overtakes car 22 to lead the race to the end. For Benoit and for all at NISMO this was indeed an amazingly rewarding win, at first race of the season.  

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