The third knockout round had a total of 80 drivers, divided into four groups, with the top five in each advancing to the finals.
Leaving aside the T2 drivers mentioned above, there were also 56 T3 drivers and three trainee drivers.
"More than half the T2 drivers were eliminated in two rounds."
Compared with the T2 drivers in the Spring Race, a higher proportion had been eliminated in the Summer Race.
After all... most of the capable ones had gone to prepare for the real T2 regional races in July. Most of those still entering the Summer Race had somewhat inflated credentials.
Apart from the imperfect early system, when even the Orange League could hold regional races, another way to scrape into T2 was the certification method of reaching the T2 finals twice in three years.
For example, entering Alola's T2 races for three consecutive years put far less pressure on a driver than doing so in Kanto.
Still, even with inflated credentials, they were T2 drivers. Without sufficient skill, they could not reach the regional finals even by switching to the Alola Region, so he still had to be careful.
As for Lisia saying Shen Qi was in the Group of Death...
"Holy shit, eight T2 drivers in my group?!"
In theory, dividing the remaining 21 T2 competitors among four groups meant a standard difficulty of five or six per group. Shen Qi's had been stuffed with eight.
And... the Rainbow Flying Sword was there too, in the same group as Shen Qi again!
There was also Chloe. Cerise Castle stood out on the list.
"What kind of cursed coincidence is this?"
Cerise Castle was nothing to worry about. It would almost certainly be eliminated here.
Actually, Chloe had already done very well. She was only a trainee driver