Last lap drama doesn’t get much more heartbreaking than this. Japan’s Max Orido had victory taken away from him at the last possible moment, after running out of fuel and grinding to a halt just a few feet away from the checkered flag.
Orido was driving the BMW M4 GT4 you see below, in the Asian GT4 racing series at Okayama International Circuit this weekend. He and his teammate, Masaki Kano, had led every lap of the race up to that point and, on the final lap, were 33 seconds ahead of the second-place Toyota GR Supra GT4.
As you can hear in the video below, it wasn’t immediately clear what was going on when Orido’s M4 GT4 started slowing down. Daily Sports Car reports that some believed the driver was trying to slow down to run out the clock, so as not to require an additional lap to be run.
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Unfortunately, Orido’s slowdown was neither strategy nor gamesmanship. Rather, he was simply running out of fuel, something that became abundantly clear as the second-place GR Supra GT4, piloted by Haridarma Manoppo and Seita Nonaka, came speeding around the final corner, and past the stricken M4 GT4, taking the checkered flag.
Eventually, Orido decided to get out of the car, and just started pushing it down the final straight. He did manage to get the car across the line, but not before being passed by five other cars, and ultimately finishing the race sixth, in what should have been a dominant display for the YZ Racing with BMW M Team Studie M4 GT4.
Worse still, the lack of fuel economy didn’t just mean the loss of one victory for the team. If it had won, the team would have also earned itself the driver’s championship title. Fortunately, Masaki Kano and Max Orido were given another chance to win the following day, on Sunday, and were confirmed as the 2023 Fanatex Japan Cup drivers’ champions after winning the race.
After such an earnest final push, it’s hard not to be happy for the drivers, who clearly wanted the title with all of their hearts.