Motegi showed its hand before the season had even gone green. Hyperion Racing's Derek Hyberger spun on the formation lap, made contact, and was sent from P8 to the back of the grid. When the lights went green at the 25:50 mark of the broadcast, some reckoned the day's biggest drama was already behind them. It was only starting.

Race Control needed 5 minutes to log 5 reported incidents, and 9 minutes to penalise the front row. Oier Jugo, on GT3 pole for Enosis eSports with a 1:48.968, got 20s for jumping the start. Hendrik Augustin, CARLAR esports CUP's PCUP pole-sitter, was hit with a start infringement of his own. Two of the three pole-sitters were penalised before the field had completed 5 laps.

66%, two of our three pole-sitters, that have been deemed for going too early. Oh, dear me. That is not the way you want to start off the season.

— Arjuna Kankipadi, lead commentator

Garrett Berry, in SOELPEC's GT3 #62, drew a sanction for causing an incident. Scuderia Volpe's #19 picked up 15s for first-lap contact. BS+HYBRID's #90 collected back-to-back penalties worth 60s in total. By T+0:23, 23 minutes in, Race Control had logged 18 incidents and 10 penalties, and the GT3 cars had started squabbling with the GT4s they were lapping. The first pit window had not even opened.

The BoP cut fuel tanks to 75%, so every car had to pit roughly every 45 minutes. The first stops turned the unserved start penalties into a strategic disaster for the front row. Enosis' GT3 #9 and CARLAR's PCUP #960 each owed 20s. Falken Simracing Team's Luca Wunsch, second in GT3 in the #44 BMW, reeled Jugo in and let the pit cycle do the rest.

It got worse for Enosis. They did not serve their 20s penalty, the casters expected it to double, and at T+1:57 Race Control doubled it to 40s.

The easiest way to get a penalty is don't serve the previous one, it turns out.

— David Haynes

Within the hour another car would learn the same lesson, starting from a 120s penalty.

After the first stops, Falken's #44 led Enosis' #9 by 2.5s at the front of GT3. In PCUP, CARLAR's #960 held a half-second margin over Grid-and-Go.com eSports' #901. In GT4, defending champions Team75 Bernhard by SimRC were already clear. Corentin Guinez led by 9s at T+1:27 and pulled away every lap.

For two and a half hours the #44 ran without a mistake. Wunsch handed over cleanly to James Beumee and the gap held. Then Motegi turned on it.

At T+2:37, two and a half hours in and with the championship lead in his hands, Beumee's Falken #44 was hit hard enough to end its race. The trouble started 15s earlier, when Scuderia Volpe's #19, SZESE E-Sport's GT4 #426 and Team Purplesector's PCUP #997 went three-wide on the racing line and the Porsche Cup car spun sideways. Purplesector rejoined onto live track and went straight into the back of Beumee's BMW. The heavy rear contact broke the suspension, and the race was over.

If you believe in the curse of the commentator, there's Exhibit A.

— David Haynes, as the Falken's clean run ended

Race Control gave Purplesector 120s for the unsafe rejoin. They never served it. By the time the clock passed 4 hours it had doubled to 240s, on top of a separate 10s carryover from an earlier 5s contact penalty that Purplesector had also left unserved. That made 250s of penalties, over 4 minutes, stacked on one car.

Fiercely Forward briefly inherited the GT3 lead. By half distance Race Control had processed 50 incidents and 19 penalties, a count that would cover a whole 6-hour race at most circuits. At Motegi the worst was still to come.

It came at T+3:22. Enosis' #9 was sitting stationary in the penalty box, still working through the procedure, when Zennith Esports' #73 finished its own shorter penalty and pulled away without seeing that the lane ahead was occupied. The impact put Enosis out on the spot. Jugo had admitted in chat earlier that he had not even known he had a jump-start penalty to serve. Zennith got 140s.

Three of the favourites were now out or buried in the pack, Enosis and Falken in GT3 and CARLAR in PCUP. The race was Grid-and-Go.com eSports' to lose.

The track lights came on at 18:40 virtual time. The field was down from 58 runners to 51, and track temperature slid from 24°C to 22°C. Grid-and-Go's #1, with Alessandro Quintaie and Sven Haase swapping stints, led GT3 from Maniti Racing Green's #78 in a "ding-dong" fight. The gap swung between 5s and 7s for 40 minutes.

The best action was in PCUP. Augustin, the pole-sitter carrying a 20s start penalty and now fourth in class, caught a group of GT4 Caymans on the approach to the Motegi hairpin and split them three-wide for a podium place. The booth went into full broadcast mode.

Which one will be Hakkinen? Which one will be Schumacher? The inside for Hendrik Augustin, so he'll play the part of Mika Hakkinen.

— Booth call at T+3:58

It was the move of the race. The early sanction had cost Augustin's CARLAR too much to lead PCUP again, but the pass put him back in podium contention with 2 hours still to run.

Further back, BS+COMPETITION's #89 had become the fastest car on track, with Lucas Hermann and then Thomas Labouteley at the wheel. By the end of the hour three teams were fighting for the GT3 podium. Grid-and-Go led, Maniti Racing Green chased, and BS+COMPETITION were closing.

The penultimate hour opened with a three-wide at Turn 1 that put Negative Delta's Gabriel Ivanov in the gravel. Then Hermann showed that, on pace alone, he was the fastest driver in the field.

At T+5:19, with roughly 40 minutes to go, he set the fastest lap of the race in the BS+COMPETITION BMW, a 1:48.645.

That's less ragging, more fanging. Lucas Hermann is fanging.

— Booth call

It was a quick lap in a well-balanced car, and it changed nothing. Quintaie's final stop at T+5:33 was fuel only, no tyres, which kept Grid-and-Go far enough ahead that Hermann's pace could not close the gap in the time left. BS+COMPETITION had lost the race to penalties earlier in the day, a 5s penalty for contact in a braking zone and two 10s penalties for hitting lapped cars. Without them, the booth said, the #89 "should be leading this race."

PCUP had the cruellest late twist. Luke Wallace had moved the Impulse #915 into a podium place, and 20 minutes from the flag he was caught three-wide at Turn 8 with a slowing 992 and the Wizards #498 Cayman.

Three in the bed and the little one said roll over, and Luke Wallace did, for Impulse, and it's cost them a podium.

— Booth call at T+5:41

Corentin Lassine's Bleu Mercure Esport inherited third and held it. Two penalties landed in the minutes after the flag, 15s for track limits on the #912 Fiercely Forward and 10s for contact while lapping on the #89 BS+COMPETITION. Neither changed the order at the front of any class.

Quintaie took the GT3 flag for Grid-and-Go.com eSports by 6.655s from Tim Matzke's Maniti Racing Green #78. Hermann's BS+COMPETITION #89 held on for third with the fastest lap, the best pace and 25s of penalties on the day.

Number one, Alessandro Quintaie, will take victory at Motegi to open the account for the season.

— Booth call as the GT3 winner crossed the line

Less than a minute later Grid-and-Go's sister car, the #901 of Adrian Gericke and Gunonso Tasdelen, won PCUP by 13.5s from CARLAR, with Bleu Mercure third. In GT4, Guinez and Gareth Higgins took Team75 Bernhard by SimRC from pole to flag and finished roughly 25s clear of MONO Competition, with Nahuel Fredes' Byte.Collino Max third.

Grid-and-Go.com eSports left Motegi with maximum championship points in GT3 and PCUP, and an early lead in both.

It was just some poker. Surviving until the end. You couldn't have asked for a better start to the season.

— Adrian Gericke, PCUP winner in the Grid-and-Go.com eSports #901

Raw pace did not win at Motegi. The fastest lap belonged to a team that finished third in class, and the GT3 pole-sitter ended his race rammed in the penalty box. The wins went to the teams that made clean tyre calls, served their penalties and kept the car out of the gravel. Round 2 heads to Motorland Aragón on 5 July.