The “old” Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 still has more than a little bit of competitive running in it, as it turns out.
Yukinori “Yuke” Taniguchi and Hideki Yamauchi piloted the #3 Endless Sports GT-R and co-drivers Tsubasa Mekaru, Kyosuke Mineo, Jukuchou Sunako, and Shinnosuke Yamada to pole position for the 2018 Fuji Super TEC 24 Hours on Friday, with the #99 GTNET Y’s Distraction GT-R of Teruhiko Hamano and Kazuki Hoshino qualifying second to give the previous-generation GT-Rs a front-row lockout for Saturday’s 3 PM start.
In this qualifying session, the grid would be set based on the aggregate times from the first two registered drivers, and new to this event from previous Super Taikyu race meetings, the cars in the ST-X class would qualify separately from the rest of the classes in “Group 1” (ST-Z, ST-TCR, ST-1, ST-2, and ST-3).
With the track to themselves, the Gentleman drivers ran the first round of qualifying. In that first round, Alex Au was quickest in the #82 Phoenix Racing Asia Audi R8, putting in a time of 1’40.877 and beating out Taniguchi’s best time of a 1’40.996 by just a tenth of a second.
The second round of ST-X qualifying saw the professional drivers plugged in to get a chance at the pole position. Shawn Thong immediately laid down a sub-1 minute 40 second lap on his first flying lap in the #82 Audi. Yamauchi was able to take the top time in the session with a 1’39.703 in the #3 Nissan, but Thong had set a lap of 1’39.738 which, on the aggregate times, would have given the #82 Audi pole position by less than a tenth of a second.
But race officials saw that Thong had exceeded the track limits on his fastest laps, so his times were deleted, and the #82 Audi will start at the back of the 29-car Group 1 grid on Saturday.
Max Hofer in the #83 Phoenix Racing Asia Audi R8 ended up finishing that second round of qualifying in second place, and Hoshino was third in the #99 Nissan. With those and the results of their co-drivers in the first round, the #99 Nissan will start 2nd, the #83 Audi in 3rd, and the #81 J-Fly Racing Audi R8 (Jeffrey Lee/André Couto) will start fourth.
A difficult first round for Satoshi Hoshino left the #777 D’station Racing Porsche 911 GT3-R unable to move up any higher on the grid than sixth place despite the best efforts of 2004 Le Mans winner Seiji Ara in round two. They’ll start alongside the #244 MAX Racing Lexus RC F GT3 (Go Max/Tetsuya Tanaka) which qualified fifth.
The sole remaining ST-1 car, the #47 D’station Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (Tatsuya Hoshino/Manabu Orido), will start seventh overall, knowing they have clinched the class victory with the sudden withdrawal of Nissoku apr Racing’s #31 Porsche.
ST-TCR saw a first-time pole winning team in Audi Team Mars, with the #65 L&JR Audi RS3 LMS starting eighth overall tomorrow at the head of this class.
In the first round of qualifying, gentleman driver Daisuke Imamura ended up posting the fastest time of anyone in the category – including the pros who would take part in the next round – giving his co-driver Masanobu Kato enough of a buffer to work with during his run. They ended up winning pole position by a final margin of 0.7 seconds, thanks in large part to Imamura’s whopping lap of 1’49.598.
Audi Team Mars, who made their series debut at the most recent round at Sportsland SUGO, will start on pole next to the championship-leading #97 Modulo Honda Civic TCR (Tadao Uematsu/Shinji Nakano), and the #98 Floral Honda Civic TCR (Taiyou Iida/Hiroki Katoh) qualified third, ahead of last year’s winners of the 10-hour Fuji Super TEC, the #10 RacingLine Performance Volkswagen Golf TCR (Philippe Devesa/Shogo Mitsuyama).
It’s a very close field in ST-TCR, with only 2.5 seconds separating all seven teams in qualifying.
ST-3 class pole position went to the #68 Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave Toyota Mark X of Naoki Hattori and Shigekazu Wakisaka, which will start fifteenth overall. They took pole by almost a full second over the #14 Okabe Jidosha Motorsports/EVA Racing Nissan Z34 (Masaya Kohno/Tomoaki Ichimori), but the margin could have been greater had Hattori’s fastest lap not been deleted due to a track limits violation.
The overwhelming ST-2 favourites, the #59 DAMD Motul Subaru WRX STI (Manabu Osawa/Hitoshi Gotoh), took class pole position (16th overall) by over four seconds over the next ST-2 car, the #6 Shinryo Auto Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X (Tomohiro Tomimasu/Yasushi Kikuchi).
The much-anticipated debut of the ST-Z (FIA GT4) category this weekend saw the #51 Diamango Porsche Cayman GT4 make its first qualifying attempt.
Gentleman driver Masamitsu Ishihara struggled for pace during his run, but his Platinum teammate, Shinya Hosokawa, did put in a solid lap of a 1’49.450. Their combined times put them 22nd on the grid tomorrow, but they should be quick enough to power past the TCR, ST-2, and ST-3 cars ahead of them.
ST-4 class and Group 2 pole position went to the #86 TOM’s Spirit Toyota 86 of Takamitsu Matsui and Sho Tsuboi, which is going for its eighth consecutive class victory in Super Taikyu starting tomorrow. The class favourites didn’t have it all to themselves in qualifying, as the #55 SunOasis Toyota 86 (Jun Tashiro/Takashi Oi) kept them close and were within 0.117 seconds of pole.
In ST-5, the turbo-diesel #66 Odula Mazda Demio of Riku Hashimoto and Shigetomo Shimono took pole position by almost a second over the #2 Team221 Mazda Roadster ND (Katsuhiko Tsutsui/Koji Yamanishi).
There were more qualifying sessions for the other drivers registered to each car, which did not impact the qualifying order. In the “C” group, Shintaro Kawabata (#81 J-Fly Racing R8) was fastest, in the “D” group, Britain’s Philip Ellis (#82 Phoenix Racing Asia R8) was fastest, and in the “E and F” group, Shinnosuke Yamada (#3 Endless GT-R) was fastest.
The inaugural Fuji Super TEC 24 Hours is set for a 3:00 PM JST (local) start, and all the action can be seen on the official Super Taikyu TV YouTube Live channel.
