It was the last race for the collaborative effort of Kondo Racing and the Nissan Automotive Technical College in the Pirelli Super Taikyu Series before their impending “graduation” into the GT300 class of the Autobacs Super GT Series and their first effort in the Nürburgring 24 Hours. And what a graduation party they left us with!
Yuudai Uchida, Tomonobu Fujii, and Kazuki Hiramine picked up the win in the Group 1 final race at Okayama International Circuit, taking the #24 ThreeBond Nissan Gakuen GT-R to its second win of the season in a dramatic final three-hour race of the 2018 Super Taikyu season, one that saw the ST-3 Class Championship decided with a pass for second place with just two laps to go.
Chaos broke out at the start when polesitter Keong Wee Lim in the #83 Phoenix Racing Asia Audi R8 LMS GT3 got a poor start, dropping the pink Audi to 6th on the opening lap. André Couto in the #81 J-Fly Racing R8 took the lead after lap one, but was given an almost immediate drive-through penalty due to a jump start.
This put the #999 CarGuy Lamborghini Huracán GT3 of Kei Cozzolino into the lead in its first appearance of 2018, followed by Fujii in the #24 ThreeBond Nissan Gakuen GT-R, Hideki Yamauchi in the #3 Endless GT-R, and gentleman driver Teruhiko Hamano in the #99 Y’s Distraction GTNET GT-R.
They ran like this until the end of Lap 43, when Cozzolino gave way to Afiq Yazid in the #999 CarGuy Huracán. The following lap, the #24 and #3 GT-Rs pitted, with Yuudai Uchida getting into the 24, and Tsubasa Mekaru climbing into the 3. Thanks to supreme pit work, the two GT-Rs emerged ahead of the bright yellow Lamborghini, running 1-2 with gentleman driver Uchida putting in lap times comparable to some of the Platinum & Expert graded drivers!
Kazuki Hiramine took over the #24 GT-R for the final 46 laps of the race, and once the second round of pit stops settled, he jumped out to a commanding lead. Gentleman drivers Yukinori Taniguchi (#3 Endless GT-R) and Takeshi Kimura (#999 CarGuy Huracán) fell through the order and could not stay on the podium, finishing 5th and 6th respectively.
An opportunity arose for the #244 MAX Racing Lexus RC F GT3 (Go Max/Tetsuya Tanaka/Kimiya Sato) to pick up its first Super Taikyu podium, but Tanaka was hit by the #81 J-Fly Racing R8 of Alessio Picariello. Tanaka spun out of the podium places, and Picariello picked up the J-Fly Audi’s second drive-through penalty of the afternoon.
Hiramine, meanwhile, was well ahead of the chaos by this point, and drove the Kondo Racing GT-R to a comfortable overall victory in the final race of the 2018 season. They completed 115 laps finished 32 seconds ahead of the #99 Y’s Distraction GT-R of Hamano, Kazuki Hoshino, and Kiyoto Fujinami, which finished their championship-winning ST-X season with a second-place finish. And after the terrible start, the #83 Phoenix Racing Asia R8 of Lim, Melvin Moh, and WEC star Mathias Beche rallied to finish in third, ahead of the #81 J-Fly Racing R8 of Couto, Picariello, & Jeffrey Lee.
The ST-1 class #31 apr Racing Porsche 911 GT3-R (“T. Stark”/Masami Kageyama/Ryuichiro Tomita) finished 9th overall, and in its first race, the ST-Z class #550 Monocolle Ginetta G55 GT4 (Ryo/Hironobu Yasuda/Hideki Hirota) finished 26th overall – they were hampered by electrical issues during the race that cost them several laps, but they still made it to the finish.
In ST-TCR, the championship-winning #97 Modulo Honda Civic TCR of Tadao Uematsu, Shinji Nakano, and Hiroki Otsu completed a dominant 2018 season by taking their third win of the year, and the fifth for Honda in 2018. Two Audi RS3 LMS completed the podium places: The #45 Prisma Illya RS3 LMS (Naoto Takeda/Takuya Shirasaka/Shozo Tagahara) in second, and the #19 BRP Audi Mie RS3 (Hirobon/Takeshi Matsumoto/Yossy) in third.
But with the above class championship titles already decided, ST-3 and ST-2 had the greatest championship implications in this final race of the season.
The #62 Denso Le Beausset Lexus RC350 of Koki Saga, Kenta Yamashita, and Ritomo Miyata made its way up through the field from fifth in class, up to second place by the end of Yamashita’s blistering opening stint. 19-year-old Miyata took over for the second leg of the race, and took the lead away from the pole-winning #68 Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave Toyota Mark X (Naoki Hattori/Shigekazu Wakisaka/Takayuki Hiranuma) on Lap 56.
On Lap 77, Miyata clocked out after 33 laps, and Koki Saga was set to drive to the end. Le Beausset Motorsport elected not to change tyres on their stop, going with fuel and a driver change only to get them to the end of the race.
Saga emerged with the lead, but his pace began to diminish from the lack of grip in his worn set of Pirelli tyres. With 25 minutes left to go, Ryohei Sakaguchi in the #38 muta Racing Lexus RC350 overtook Saga at the Hairpin Curve to go to the lead of the race. Sakaguchi and Makoto Hotta trailed the #62 Denso RC350 by 6.5 points going into this race. Saga was struggling for grip, but as long as they were holding onto 2nd place, they would win the championship by just 1.5 points.
But in the final 10 minutes, Kazuomi Komatsu in the #15 Go & Fun Nissan Fairlady Z34 (with Masaaki Nagashima) was putting on a charge through the field. Komatsu was on fresher rubber, and even though the Okabe Jidosha Motorsport Z34 couldn’t win the championship, they weren’t content to lay back in the final round of the season.
Saga, even on worn tyres, was still trying to retake the lead from Sakaguchi, but with two laps to go, he went in too deep at the first corner, opening the door just enough for Komatsu to get past, and the green Fairlady Z held the place through Williams Curve and broke away from the Denso RC350.
Komatsu made one last push for the win, but the Lexus of Sakaguchi was able to hold off the Nissan behind him at the line by just 0.235 seconds to secure the victory in the last race of the season for the #38 muta Racing RC350 of Hotta & Sakaguchi. And with that pass for 2nd place, the three-point swing meant that the #38 Tracy Sports entry won the championship by 1.5 points over Le Beausset Motorsports and their all-star trio of Toyota factory drivers, who came home in third place.
It’s Hotta & Sakaguchi’s second title win in three years, the first coming with the previous-generation Lexus IS 350 that was only replaced prior to the penultimate round at Twin Ring Motegi.
In ST-2, the #6 Shinryo Auto/Dixcel Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X (Tomohiro Tomimasu/Yasushi Kikuchi/Masazumi Ohashi) led most of the race to take their second win of the season.
But in second place, the #59 DAMD Motul Subaru WRX STI of Manabu Osawa, Hitoshi Gotoh, Takuto Iguchi, and Mizuki Ishizaka did more than enough to win the ST-2 Championship by 10.5 points, and with it, win TOWA INTEC Racing’s sixth consecutive ST-2 Class title, a streak that began in 2013 with a third-generation “GV” WRX STI, and now extends to their current “VA” fourth-generation model.
After 7,319 kilometres of racing, the 2018 Pirelli Super Taikyu Series has ended, and now the focus of the teams shifts to the 2019 season.
Images courtesy of the Super Taikyu Organisation (STO)
