The Motegi Super Taikyu 5 Hour Race at Twin Ring Motegi came down to the final ten minutes, which ultimately decided the championship in the Pirelli Super Taikyu Series’ premier category. The #83 X Works Racing Audi R8 LMS of Tse Ka Hing, Shaun Thong, and Philip Tang passed the #9 MP Racing Nissan GT-R GT3 of Joe Shindo, Yusaku Shibata, and Masami Kageyama for the race lead with four laps to go, as the Nissan suffered a cut tyre which ended their race within sight of the chequered flag.
And the misfortunes of MP Racing combined with recurring mechanical failures for the pole-winning #777 D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 (Satoshi Hoshino/Tomonobu Fujii/Tsubasa Kondo) meant that GTNET Motor Sports and drivers Teruhiko Hamano, Kazuki Hoshino, and Kiyoto Fujinami, despite not being entered in this weekend’s penultimate round of the 2019 Super Taikyu Series – have clinched back-to-back ST-X (FIA GT3) Class Championship titles.
The first signs of trouble for the pole-winning Vantage happened just as Fujii wrapped up his opening stint of the race. 15 minutes into Kondo’s first stint, the D’station Vantage went back to the garage, and would continue to suffer mechanical gremlins throughout – including stopping on course with 90 minutes left, bringing out the third of three Full Course Yellow (FCY) periods. They would finish the race 34th overall, 3rd in class, and 20 laps off the leader.
Next it was the #244 Max Racing Lexus RC F GT3 (Toru Tanaka/Tetsuya Tanaka/Kimiya Sato) who found themselves in the lead after an early spin. But halfway through the race, Sato’s pace began to diminish, and after spinning at V Corner (Turn 9), couldn’t get the Lexus going again. Transmission failure was the culprit, and Max Racing retired with just 75 laps on the board.
This was the opportunity that MP Racing needed to seize their first ST-X Class race win, and one that they needed to keep their championship hopes alive. Although GTNET Motor Sports had skipped this race, their 48.5 point lead with 31 points available meant that only a victory for MP Racing’s bright yellow GT-R could keep the points battle alive going into the finale at Okayama International Circuit on November 3.
Shibata found himself leading with 20 minutes left, but a massive lead had been whittled away thanks to a hard charge from Thong, who was replacing Shinya Sean Michimi due to the latter’s commitments in Lamborghini Super Trofeo America this weekend. It had been a miserable season for X Works in ST-X this year, but suddenly, Thong had them within striking distance of their first victory with 10 minutes left.
As the leaders were about to start Lap 136, Shibata made contact with an ST-5 class Mazda Roadster through Victory Corner. It looked at first that the GT-R would drive away unscathed. But then with six minutes left on the clock, Thong made his move for the lead through Turn 3, and Shibata slowed down dramatically, as the contact with the backmarker resulted in the right rear tyre coming off. The MP Racing GT-R then ended up in the gravel, before finishing second, scored two laps off the win.
X Works Racing, who entered this round 7th and last in the ST-X standings, outlasted their competition and drove on to their first victory in the Pirelli Super Taikyu Series since entering for the first time as Phoenix Racing Asia in 2018.
And it’s the first Super Taikyu victory for Audi in the ST-X class since 2011, when ST-X was a brand-new class comprised only of Hitotsuyama Racing’s Type 42 Audi R8 LMS GT3!
While their car was not entered, Teruhiko Hamano, Kazuki Hoshino, and Kiyoto Fujinami were at Twin Ring Motegi, watching from the paddock as the results confirmed back-to-back championships for GTNET Motor Sports and team owner/former Super GT GT300 driver Naofumi Omoto! This is their third championship in six years, having also won the 2014 ST-X title.
Hoshino has been with the team for all three of those occasions and claims his third Super Taikyu title in doing so. For Hamano, the gentleman racer who works as the president of a Tokyo-based dairy company on the weekdays, it’s his second premier class title in as many attempts. And for 24-year-old Fujinami, these back-to-back ST-X Championships add to his previous ST-3 class title he won in 2014.
Third in the overall classification was the ST-1 Class-winning #47 D’station Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (Tatsuya Hoshino/Manabu Orido/Kenji Hama), which scored the class win by three laps over the #998 Z-REX Advics Tracy Sports Audi R8 LMS Cup (Jeffrey Zee/Kizuku Hirota/Leo Ye), in sixth overall.
They sandwiched the winner and runner-up in the ST-Z (FIA GT4) class, and for the first time, it was class victory (fifth overall) for the #2 K’s Frontier Syntium KTM X-Bow GT4 of Taiyou Iida, Hiroki Katoh, and Takashi Kobayashi. After retirement at the Fuji 24 Hours and a crash-induced early withdrawal from the Autopolis round, the lightweight X-Bow finally converted its third pole position of the season into a class victory, the very first for KTM in Super Taikyu!
The 2019 ST-Z Champions, the #3 Endless Sports Mercedes-AMG GT4 (Yuudai Uchida/Hideki Yamauchi/Tsubasa Takahashi), finished one lap down, sixth overall and 2nd in class, while the #190 Birth Racing Project Mercedes-AMG GT4 (Kouichi Okumura/Akira Mizutani/Daisuke Yamawaki) finished 3rd in class and 19th overall, six laps off the class leader.
While the top three classes’ championships are already decided, ST-TCR will go right to the very end in Okayama after the #97 Modulo Honda Civic TCR of Tadao Uematsu, Shinji Nakano, Mitsuhiro Endo, and Hiroki Otsu won its second straight race of the season and clawed their way back into the fight for Honda’s third consecutive class title!
The race was won in the final hour as Otsu passed the #22 Waimarama Kizuna Audi RS3 LMS of Katsumasa Chiyo for the lead on the 109th lap, and after struggling early on in the race thanks to the added weight from a recent BoP adjustment, it was the #97 Civic – winning on the Honda-owned Twin Ring Motegi, that came away the victor, ahead of the #22 Audi of Chiyo, Kazutomo Robert Hori, Kizuna, and Lee Jung Woo in second. They were seventh and eighth in the overall classification.
In its first race, the #33 Audi Driving Experience RS3 LMS of Audi Race Experience contest winner Masaki Ano, joined by Masataka Yanagida, Ryuichiro Tomita, and Hideki Nakahara that completed the podium, with the #19 BRP Audi Mie RS3 LMS (Yuya Ohta/Takeshi Matsumoto/Takuro Shinohara) fourth and the #10 IDI Volkswagen Golf GTI (Philippe Devesa/Shogo Mitsuyama/Jake Parsons) fifth.
That fifth place for the Adenau VW Golf was crucial in a race that saw the pole-winning #65 Phenomen Mars RS3 LMS (Taketoshi Matsui/Masanobu Kato/Masato Shimoyama/Daisuke Imamura) suffer brake issues and finish seven laps down in 8th, while the #45 BRIN-NAUB RS3 LMS (Naoto Takeda/Takuya Shirasaka/Shozo Tagahara) was the victim of a rather awkward collision with the eventual race-winning X Works Audi R8, for which the R8 was given a drive-through penalty that they had to overcome. But that left the #45 RS3 to limp home to 9th in class, completing only 98 laps.
So going into the finale at Okayama, just a half a point separates the top three in ST-TCR, the #10 Volkswagen, the #97 Honda, and the #45 Audi! The #19 Audi is just three points off the lead in fourth, the #65 Audi is nine points back in fifth, and even the #22 Audi isn’t out of it, just 14 points out of the lead in sixth, and a half-point ahead of the #75 Azimuth Team Mars Honda in seventh!
The timing of a Safety Car intervention swung the battle for the lead in ST-3 class and decided it in favour of the #62 Denso Le Beausset Lexus RC 350 of WEC LMP2 rookie Kenta Yamashita, Koki Saga, and Ryo Ogawa who finished ninth overall. This was a bittersweet occasion as Le Beausset Motorsports team owner, Tadao Tsubomatsu, announced that the team would be closing its doors at the end of 2019, after thirty years in operation, shortly before the race began.
The #68 Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave Toyota Mark X (Naoki Hattori/Shigekazu Wakisaka/Hiroki Yoshida) lost a lap being held in the pits during the Safety Car, but fought back to finish 8.9 seconds off the class win in second (11th overall), ahead of the #38 Advics muta racing RC 350 (Makoto Hotta/Ryohei Sakaguchi/Yuui Tsutsumi) in third.
Championship leaders Yuya Tezuka, Shuji Maejima, and Riki Okusa finished 4th in the #34 Techno First RC350, and now lead the #68 GreenBrave Mark X by just three points heading into Okayama. The #62 Le Beausset RC350 is still mathematically eligible for the title but needs a victory and a non-finish from the top two for that reversal to happen.
20th overall and winners in ST-2 were the #6 Shinryo Auto/Dixcel Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X of Tomohiro Tomimasu, Yasushi Kikuchi, and Masazumi Ohashi. Transmission gremlins left the #59 DAMD Motul Subaru WRX STI (Manabu Osawa/Hitoshi Ogawa/Takuto Iguchi/Mizuki Ishizaka) two laps down in second, ahead of the #17 DXL Aragosta NOPRO Mazda Axela Sky-D (Tatsuya Nogami/Tatsuya Tanigawa/Toshihiro Nogami) in 3rd – while the debuting #743 Honda R&D Challenge Civic Type R (Hitoshi Sezai/Junichi Kidachi/Tetsuaki Mochizuki/Hideki Kakinuma) finished 4th.
The #6 Mitsubishi has to win with the #59 Subaru failing to finish at Okayama to deny TOWA INTEC Racing a record-breaking seventh consecutive ST-2 Class Championship, while, if the Subaru takes pole at Okayama, the title will be decided before the race.
ST-4 was won for the first time by C.S.I Racing and the #310 GR Garage Mito Inter Toyota 86 of Rintaro Kubo, Shinya Hosokawa, and Hirokazu Suzuki, who took advantage of strategy to prevail ahead of the #86 TOM’s Spirit 86 (Sho Tsuboi/Yuichi Nakayama/Takamitsu Matsui) by 17 seconds.
Third place was the #884 Hayashi Telempu Shade Racing 86 (Katsuyuki Hiranaka/Yuji Kunimoto/Keishi Ishikawa), who take with them a thirteen point lead in the ST-4 Championship table into Okayama.
And in ST-5, the #4 Bride Honda Fit RS3 (Hidefumi Minami/Seijiro Aihara/Shunsuke Sato) converted pole to victory – another Honda to win at Motegi – second place was the #37 DXL Aragosta NOPRO Mazda Demio Sky-D (Kaoru Ijiri/Yutaka Seki), and in third, the #78 Love Drive Racing Mazda Roadster (Yugo Osaki/Koji Yamanishi) completes the podium.
That victory for Bride Racing vaults them right to the front of the lead in the championship, by such a margin that all they’d need is to finish at Okayama to wrap up the title in ST-5.
The championship titles in ST-TCR, ST-2, ST-3, ST-4, and ST-5 will be decided in the season finale at Okayama International Circuit, host of two three-hour races, on November 2-3.
Images courtesy of the Super Taikyu Organisation (STO)
