Keong Wee Lim and FIA World Endurance Championship standout Mathias Beche drove the bright pink #83 Phoenix Racing Asia Audi R8 LMS GT3 to pole position for tomorrow’s final round of the 2018 Pirelli Super Taikyu Series at Okayama International Circuit.
Lim, Beche, Melvin Moh, and Shintaro Kawabata will lead the 30-car Group 1 field, comprised of the cars from the ST-X, ST-Z, ST-TCR, ST-1, ST-2, and ST-3 classes, to the green flag in their three-hour race which starts from 13:35 JST (local time). This is Audi’s first ST-X pole position of the season, and one that provisionally leapfrogs the #83 Audi to 2nd in the ST-X Championship table behind the 2018 champions, the #99 Y’s Distraction GTNET Nissan GT-R GT3 (Teruhiko Hamano/Kazuki Hoshino/Kiyoto Fujinami), who will start 6th.
Beche, the Audi factory driver and recent overall winner in the WEC with Rebellion Racing, who put the #83 Phoenix Racing Asia R8 over the top in the second round of qualifying with a best lap of 1’29.130. The combined times of Lim and Beche (above, wearing one of team principal Marchy Lee’s racing suits) were enough to put them on pole by 0.239 seconds.
Making its first appearance of the season, the #999 CarGuy Lamborghini Huracán GT3 (Takeshi Kimura/Kei Cozzolino/Afiq Yazid) will start second on the grid, between the #83 Phoenix Racing Asia R8 and the #81 J-Fly Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 (Jeffrey Lee/André Couto/Alessio Picariello) which qualified third. The three Nissan GT-R GT3s qualified fourth through sixth, led by the #24 ThreeBond Nissan Gakuen GT-R (Yuudai Uchida/Tomonobu Fujii/Kazuki Hiramine) in fourth, and the #3 Endless Sports GT-R (Yuke Taniguchi/Hideki Yamauchi/Tsubasa Mekaru) in fifth, ahead of the #99 Y’s Distraction GTNET GT-R of Hamano, Hoshino, and Fujinami.
Bringing up the back of the ST-X field are the #244 MAX Racing Lexus RC F GT3 (Go Max/Tetsuya Tanaka/Kimiya Sato) in seventh, and the #112 Sato/Yamashita-SS Rn-sports Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Atsushi Sato/Ryosei Yamashita/Norio Kubo) in eighth. Qualifying ninth was the ST-1 class #31 apr Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (“T. Stark”/Masami Kageyama/Ryuichiro Tomita), ahead of the debuting ST-Z class #550 Monocolle Ginetta G55 GT4 (Ryo/Hironobu Yasuda/Hideki Hirota) in a respectable tenth.
In ST-TCR, Audi also took pole position, locking out the top three places in class, led by the #45 Prisma Illya RS3 LMS of Naoto Takeda, Takuya Shirasaka, and Shozo Tagahara. The #19 BRP Audi Mie RS3 (Hirobon/Takeshi Matsumoto/Takuro Shinohara/Yossy) starts 2nd in class, ahead of the #65 L&JR Mars RS3 (Daisuke Imamura/Masanobu Katoh/Hiroki Kokuzawa), and the championship-winning #97 Modulo Honda Civic TCR (Tadao Uematsu/Shinji Nakano/Hiroki Otsu/Takashi Kobayashi).
But in Group 1, the focus will be on the battles for the ST-2 and ST-3 championships, and in those classes, the pole positions went to two challengers needing any of the points they can get!
In ST-3, that was the #68 Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave Toyota Mark X of Naoki Hattori, Shigekazu Wakisaka, and Takayuki Hiranuma, taking pole position in class (19th overall) by less than two-tenths of a second. This pole position moves them to within 7 points of the lead in the standings, with a maximum of 21 more points available – 1 just for being classified, and 20 for winning the race.
The #38 muta Racing Lexus RC 350 (Makoto Hotta/Ryohei Sakaguchi) starts 4th in its class, ahead of the championship-leading #62 Denso Le Beausset RC 350 (Koki Saga/Kenta Yamashita/Ritomo Miyata).
ST-2 saw the #6 Shinryo Auto/Dixcel Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X (Tomohiro Tomimasu/Yasushi Kikuchi/Masazumi Ohashi) take pole position in class (25th overall) by a whopping 2 seconds over the championship-leading #59 DAMD Motul Subaru WRX STI (Manabu Osawa/Hitoshi Gotoh/Takuto Iguchi/Mizuki Ishizaka). But even if the #6 Mitsubishi wins tomorrow, the #59 Subaru just has to finish tomorrow’s race to win TOWA INTEC Racing’s sixth consecutive ST-2 class title.
Group 2 (ST-4 and ST-5 classes) will start their final three-hour race of the season from 8:30 JST (local time), with the 29-car grid led by the #86 TOM’s Spirit Toyota 86 of Takamitsu Matsui, Sho Tsuboi, and Yuichi Nakayama – which has dominated the ST-4 class all season long, taking their fifth pole position in 2018 by just under a full second over the #58 Kobayashi Racing Project Honda Integra Type-R (Koichi Kobayashi/Resshu Shioya/Takao Seto).
The ST-5 Championship is also going to the wire in this weekend’s race, and crucially, a wildcard entry takes pole position (15th overall) – the #11 Netz Kyoka Toyota Vitz RS (Takao Onishi/Takahiro Miki/Masashi Tojo) from Bloodsports Racing Team, making their first appearance of 2018.
Behind them is the #2 Team221 Mazda Roadster ND (Katsuhiko Tsutsui/Koji Yamanishi/Junichiro Yamashita/Yuta Kamimura), and the #88 Murakami Motors Roadster ND (Hiroyuki Murakami/Naoki Yamaya/Takeshi Wakitani) third in class, with just 4.5 points separating them in the standings.
Tomorrow’s three hour races can be seen live on the Super Taikyu TV YouTube channel – be mindful of the clocks changing overnight for those in the Americas!
Images courtesy of the Super Taikyu Organisation (STO)
