After a chaotic week at Suzuka, Francois Shink has emerged as the big winner. He took with him a huge bundle of points and secured the top spot in the standings for the first time since Week 9 of Season 1. Shink led the championship for the first nine weeks of Season 1 before being overtaken by Logan McKinzie to finish up the season, but here Shink is once again proving he is one of the top threats to win the crown.

The championship battle currently rests between six drivers heading into round four. Shink, Oetzell, and Abrams are the top three and none have used a drop week yet. Centeno-Valadez, McKinzie, and Polasek are the next three and each have consumed a drop week, so despite the gap in points between the first three and the next three they are actually very close.

If you take away the weakest performances of the top three, the points look like this:
Shink – 59
Centeno-Valadez – 58
McKinzie – 58
Polasek – 57
Oetzell – 55
Abrams – 52

Showing just how close the battle is if you account for the drop weeks by the next three drivers.

Oetzell won the feature at Suzuka and leapt to 2nd in the standings

Further out on the bubble right now are Jonathan Strahl and Jon Lauzon with 48 and 45 points respectively, both in a solid position to contest for the title with some stronger performances in the future. Inside of the title battle is also the Rookie of the Year battle, which is certainly going to be extremely close between Centeno-Valadez and Polasek, separated by only 1 point as of now. Tonight we head to Okayama for Round 4, expect to see the top drivers fighting hard for each and every point they can get.