The Autobacs Super GT Series convened at Suzuka Circuit on June 30 and July 1 for the fourth and final official test season of 2017, and the last test before the season resumes in three weeks’ time at Sportsland Sugo.
Friday testing began in the morning, under cloudy skies on a wet track, with two lengthy red flags and very little running until the circuit became somewhat driveable. The #17 Keihin Honda NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Takashi Kogure) set the fastest lap in that wet session, with four of the five Hondas inside the top five.
The track was still somewhat damp to start the afternoon, but improved to dry by the middle of a 3-hour plus session that ended up being paced by the #23 Motul Autech Nissan GT-R of Tsugio Matsuda & Ronnie Quintarelli.
The four-time GT500 champion Quintarelli set the best time of Friday, a 1:47.944, to lead the afternoon session. It would stand as the best time of the entire test period, coming within a half-second of the official lap record held by last year’s pole winner Hideki Mutoh (1:47.456).
For Saturday, the focus shifted towards long runs and race simulations instead of outright fastest laps. The #19 WedsSport Advan Lexus LC500 (Yuhi Sekiguchi/Yuji Kunimoto/Kamui Kobayashi) went the fastest in Day 2, thanks to Sekiguchi’s best time from the morning session, a 1:48.975.
Lexus once again topped the fourth and final session at Suzuka, with the defending Suzuka 1000km winners, the #38 ZENT Cerumo LC500 (Yuji Tachikawa/Hiroaki Ishiura), setting the best lap under race conditions.
GT300 was paced by the #3 B-Max NDDP Nissan GT-R (Kazuki Hoshino/Mitsunori Takaboshi) – with the young Nissan protegé Takaboshi setting the fastest GT300 lap of the meeting with a 1:58.379 on Friday. On Saturday, the #50 INGING & Arnage Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 (Akihiro Tsuzuki/Morio Nitta) went fastest with a 1:59.636 from the three-time GT300 champion Nitta.
Teams were running weight handicaps similar to what they project to run during the fourth and fifth rounds of the season at Sportsland SUGO and Fuji International Speedway. VivaC Team Tsuchiya deputy team director Takeshi Tsuchiya revealed that their Toyota 86 MC was running with 90 kilograms of physical ballast on board, though ballast figures weren’t published as part of the test results.
Jenson Button was the high-profile special attraction of the test, in his first official running in the #16 Motul Mugen NSX-GT. He did a total of 63 laps over two days, with a best lap of 1:49.283 on Friday.
So too was the new Le Mans lap record holder, Kamui Kobayashi, who did 66 laps in the WedsSport LC500.
No driver logged more laps than Kazuya Oshima, who was the only driver available for the #6 Wako’s 4CR LC500 after co-driver Andrea Caldarelli was withdrawn due to an illness. Oshima did 178 laps in total, more than the scheduled distance of the upcoming Suzuka 1000km!
Button and Kobayashi weren’t the only high-profile third drivers being added in for the test: Former F1 driver and current Emil Frey Jaguar Racing pilot, Christian Klein, got his first laps in the #26 Taisan SARD Audi R8 Fukushima this week. The Austrian driver will be Team Taisan SARD’s third driver for the 1000km, the team announced on June 15, partnering Shinnosuke Yamada and Jake Parsons.
From the Blancpain GT Series Asia, Thai driver Vutthikorn Inthraphuvasak tested the #35 Arto 86 MC 101 by himself. His future plans with Panther Team Thailand aren’t confirmed yet, though we can expect to see Vutthikorn as their third driver at Suzuka.
Also on hand for the test were established third drivers such as Tsubasa Kondo (VivaC Team Tsuchiya), Yuya Motojima (JLOC), and Takayuki Aoki (Tomei Sports).
Super GT will return for its first race in two months on July 23 for the Sugo GT 300km Race – an event that has a history of being one of the series’ most thrilling and eventful races on the calendar!
All photos courtesy of GT Association
