The two man racer style that the girls are using is interesting (its what they do in rallies if I remember correctly), and the fact that Mako can focus on driving while her friend warns her of upcoming obstacles to let her prepare for them rather than, like Takumi, just having to use their reaction time seems to have a bit of advantage.

Takumi's sweating and having to concentrate to try and keep up is really showing how much he relied on his encyclopedic knowledge of Mt. Akina...but also showcases his adaptability as he keeps the pressure on following the two of them through the course without them loosing him.

The epic drift through the hardest corner of the track, and those three guys reaction to the fact that he did it was pretty cool. Sayuki feels really threatened here as Takumi got onto the perfect line, while even Mako missed by a couple of inches. Mako is rather put out that her friend let pressure get to her, and told her get back to doing her job(as navigator).

We also get a cut away of Ryosuke and his theorising, his 'fastest on the streets' theory, and his belief that even on Mt. Akina, he can beat Takumi. It's a old claim but the show has gone out of way to showcase how much respect other drivers have for Ryosuke's driving skills. We will have to see how that pans out in the rest of the season after this race is over.

Sayuki says that there's only one or two corners left in the course, so Takumi has to do something fast to catch the girls. He can't rely on things like hooking his tires like he did to pass Keisuke and that guy from the Night Kids (not Shingo, the other guy), he doesn't have the course knowledge.

One interesting thing is what we see here in the setup for the face (well ok we mostly saw it yesterday). We see Mako and Sayuki checking the tries etc, and it makes me think back to when the Red Sons were first introduced. Itekani mentions that they check and change their tires, tuning their engines etc in accordance to conditions on the road.

We know Takumi's an expert driver but we don't know how much actual knowledge of the mechanics of a car he actually has. The car is actually Bunta's, and presumedly he's the one who does this kind of thing...but with the way the show is making it clear that Bunta is stealth mentoring his son, we have to assume that Takumi has some knowledge in those directions. It's just something I noticed.