Pre-season testing for the 2018 Autobacs Super GT Series concluded at Fuji Speedway on Sunday, and as it was on Saturday, a Yokohama-clad car turned in the fastest time of the day in the GT500 class, with the #19 WedsSport Advan Lexus LC500 of Yuji Kunimoto and Kenta Yamashita setting the outright fastest time of the day in the morning session.
Just as it was on Saturday, air temperatures were cool, but with the sun shining bright over Fuji-san for the fourth and final day of testing between Okayama and Fuji, track temperatures quickly rose in the afternoon.
The WedsSport LC500 was strong yesterday, finishing with the second-best time, and continued to set fast times on Sunday as Kunimoto set the benchmark time of the day of a 1:28.877 at the end of the first hour of the session. On a day where all teams were trying to dial in their long run pace, this would be the only GT500 time under the 1 minute 29 second marker.
Kazuya Oshima in the #6 Wako’s 4CR LC500 finished just behind him in 2nd, and completing a Lexus 1-2-3 was the #1 KeePer TOM’s LC500, driven to its fastest time by Ryo Hirakawa, who was fastest in the Saturday morning session.
Autobacs Racing Team Aguri’s #55 BMW M6 GT3 was quickest in the GT300 class with a 1:36.325 posted by Sean Walkinshaw, putting them just a tenth behind their best lap from Saturday afternoon set by co-driver Shinichi Takagi.
The GT300 class saw some pleasant surprises, including both brand-new Honda NSX GT3s in the top 10 during the morning session. The #34 Modulo Kenwood NSX GT3 was sixth-quickest overall thanks to rookie Hiroki Otsu, while the #777 CarGuy ADA NSX GT3 of Naoki Yokomizo went tenth-fastest in the morning session, which held up for 13th overall for Sunday.
In addition, the #360 RunUp Rivaux GT-R finished a very impressive third in the session (and 4th overall), even holding provisional P1 on the leaderboards thanks to a quick lap from 2001 GT300 champion Takayuki Aoki, demonstrating that there’s still plenty of life and top speed left in the previous-generation Nissan GT-R GT3.
The fourth and final session of the test, which began with a simulated rolling start, was bereft of any real “hot laps” as the teams went to work on their race simulations, as the track temperature rose 10 degrees centigrade by the start of the afternoon session at 14:00 JST.
Jann Mardenborough was the quick man of that afternoon test, setting his best lap of a 1:29.409 in the first minutes of the session, good enough for 4th overall on the day, best of the Nissans.
Yamashita backed up his veteran co-driver’s pace in the WedsSport LC500 by putting in a 1:29.447, just 0.038 seconds off Mardenborough’s top time, while Naoki Yamamoto in the #100 Raybrig NSX-GT finished 3rd in the afternoon, sixth overall, to lead the Honda contingent for Sunday.
The afternoon session was halted by three stoppages all involving GT500 cars, including engine failures for both the #23 Motul Autech GT-R and the #39 Denso Kobelco SARD LC500. Lexus Team SARD’s engine failure on the main stretch put a bit of a damper on their afternoon, but they were still able to get some time in the car for third driver Sho Tsuboi, who did 31 laps and was within a second of his co-drivers Heikki Kovalainen and Kamui Kobayashi.
D’station Racing had a great day out on the track, with Tomonobu Fujii turning 109 laps and setting the fastest time of the GT300 class on Sunday with a 1:36.269 aboard the #7 Porsche 911 GT3-R.
All in all, a good day for the team as a whole, as they’d learned last night of Sven Müller taking a podium finish in the VLN opener at the Nürburgring.
The revamped #2 Syntium Apple Lotus Evora MC of Hiroki Katoh finished 2nd in the afternoon (3rd overall for the day), and the #0 Goodsmile Hatsune Miku Mercedes-AMG GT3, still in its minimalist livery for the weekend, went 3rd-quickest in the afternoon courtesy of ace driver Nobuteru Taniguchi. Another surprise near the top was the #50 Arnage Racing AMG GT3, which was 4th thanks to newly-recruited 3rd driver Yuya Sakamoto.
With less than a second covering the top 13 GT500 cars on the final day of testing, the season-opener at Okayama International Circuit on April 8 promises to be a gripping, closely-fought battle for the victory, and over time, the entirety of the Super GT season.
Images courtesy of Team Impul and the GT Association
