The final round of the 2019 Pirelli Super Taikyu Series was contested over two three-hour races at Okayama International Circuit this Sunday.
The #777 D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Satoshi Hoshino, Tomonobu Fujii, and Tsubasa Kondo completes its first season in the premier ST-X Class by winning Sunday afternoon’s Group 1 Race from pole position, bookending the year with victories in the first and last races of the season.
Prior to that, in the Group 2 Race, the #13 Endless Sports Toyota 86 of Yuhki Nakayama, Ritomo Miyata, and Naoya Gamou took the victory.
Starting with the Group 2 Race, which began at 8:30 AM local time under clear skies. Katsuyuki Hiranaka started from pole position in the #884 Hayashi Telempu Shade Racing 86, alongside Sho Tsuboi in the #86 TOM’s Spirit 86. The #884 of Hiranaka, Yuji Kunimoto, Hiro Hayashi, and Keishi Ishikawa needed to finish fifth or better for Shade Racing to win the ST-4 Championship.
Tsuboi got the jump on Hiranaka right out of the gate, as did Gamou. The three 86es controlled the top three for virtually the entire race, with the #884 running in the position they needed to win the title.
Victory for the TOM’s Spirit team of Tsuboi, Yuichi Nakayama, and Takamitsu Matsui seemed assured until the final 40 minutes of the race when a heavy crash for the #104 Rookie Racing 86 of Masahiro Sasaki at the Moss S-Curves brought out first a Full Course Yellow, then a full Safety Car intervention.
Sasaki, who had contact with an ST-5 backmarker, was helped out of his car by the marshalls and medical team, and after being taken to the circuit’s medical centre, was discharged with no major injuries.
It was during the FCY period that Endless Sports pitted for the last time, taking a gamble by not changing tyres – just fuel only, and a change of drivers from Miyata back to Gamou. The Shade Racing 86 also pitted, with Kunimoto yielding after his stint to their gentleman driver Hayashi.
Matsui was now in second place, the TOM’s Spirit crew having made all their scheduled stops. But with 20 to go, a left-front puncture forced the white and red Toyota to make an unscheduled stop, knocking them down to third, behind the race-winning Endless 86, taking its first win of the year, and the championship-winning Shade Racing 86, becoming champions in just their second year in Super Taikyu with their own star-studded lineup led by GT300 veteran Hiranaka, and former Super Formula Champion and Toyota Gazoo Racing LMP1 wildcard Kunimoto.
ST-5 was won by the #66 odula Idia Mazda Roadster ND of Riku Hashimoto, Takayuki Takechi, and Shohei Oda who cruised to a dominant victory, despite losing third gear late in the race! in a Roadster 1-2, with the #88 Murakami Motors Roadster (Hiroyuki Murakami/Yasunori Nakajima/Naoki Yamaya) finishing 2nd and the #168 RFC Racing Honda Fit RS3 (Riki Tanioka/Shigetomo Shimono/Ryo Kobayashi) 3rd.
The newly-crowned ST-5 Champion #4 Bride Fit (Hidefumi Minam/Toshiro Seno/Carlos Honda/Shunsuke Sato) finished 4th to end the season after clinching the title during Saturday qualifying.
Then, at 1:30 in the afternoon, it was time for the main event, the Group 1 race!
The race began with Fujii taking the early lead in the green D’station Vantage, driving out to a massive lead of nearly 50 seconds by the end of his first hour at the wheel, before handing off to gentleman driver Hoshino.
Once again, there was an incident that brought out a FCY, then a full Safety Car. It was a heartbreaking end to Le Beausset Motorsports’ final race, their ST-3 class Lexus RC 350 losing the left rear wheel due to a damaged wheel nut. Koki Saga got out of the car, hurt that he couldn’t give his teammates Ryo Ogawa and Ryo Hirakawa, and everyone at Le Beausset Motorsports a class win in their last race.
During that FCY, the D’station Vantage topped off for fuel, and when the race went green again with 90 minutes left, they completed their last full-service stop, Kondo taking the car to the chequered flag. At the start of the last hour, all of the ST-X runners had completed their two driver changes – including the #244 Max Racing Lexus RC F GT3 (Toru Tanaka/Tetsuya Tanaka/Kimiya Sato), who made its first full-service stop early. But with 25 minutes left, the Max Racing RC F out of fuel and dropped to fourth, giving the lead back to the D’station Vantage which they would never relinquish.
It’s D’station Racing’s second win of the year, after Hoshino, Kondo, and Aston Martin racing legend Darren Turner won at Suzuka in the car’s debut race in Super Taikyu. The victory secures second in the ST-X Championship, despite missing the Fuji 24 Hours due to Hoshino’s preparations for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
In two weeks time, Hoshino and Fujii will partner Ross Gunn to kick off the Asian Le Mans Series from Shanghai – so those following that series will now look forward to a high-quality GT class field, made quality with D’station Racing’s presence.
Completing the top-class podium was the #112 Sato-SS Sports Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Atsushi Sato/Yuya Motojima/Ryosei Yamashita) in second, and in third, the back-to-back series champions, the #1 GTNET Motor Sports Nissan GT-R GT3 of Teruhiko Hamano, Kazuki Hoshino, and Kiyoto Fujinami. The MAX Racing RC F finished fourth after the late emergency stop, and the #9 MP Racing GT-R (Joe Shindo/Yusaku Shibata/Masami Kageyama/Keiichi Inoue) completed the race in 5th.
D’station Racing also took another class win, with their #47 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (Tatsuya Hoshino/Manabu Orido/Kenji Hama) finishing 6th overall and winning the ST-1 class by a whopping seven laps’ margin.
The #2 K’s Frontier Syntium KTM X-Bow GT4 of Taiyou Iida and Hiroki Katoh closed the season on a high note by winning the ST-Z class, their second win of the season to end the year. They battled with the #3 Endless Sports Mercedes-AMG GT4 (Yuudai Uchida/Hideki Yamauchi/Tsubasa Takahashi) throughout the first hour of the race. But that pivotal FCY-to-SC intervention went the way of the KTM, as they secured an advantage of nearly a full minute en route to the victory.
Finishing 2nd – finally able to start a race after two early practice crashes took them out at Suzuka and Autopolis and every round in between – was the #35 Monocolle SUN’s Techno First Ginetta G55 GT4 (Masaki Tanaka/Shintaro Kawabata/Hironobu Yasuda/Keisuke Kinoshita), with the Endless AMG finishing 3rd in class to end the season with a 100 per cent podium record rate.
Meanwhile, two more championships were up for grabs: ST-TCR, and ST-3. And both came down to dramatic conclusions, with the top four cars in ST-TCR separated by just two points going into today’s race.
The two early protagonists were the pole-sitting #19 BRP Audi Mie RS3 of Yuya Ohta, Takeshi Matsumoto, and Takuro Shinohara – trying to end Honda’s reign atop the class and go from fourth in the standings to the top of the table, with the #97 Modulo Honda Civic TCR (Tadao Uematsu/Shinji Nakano/Mitsuhiro Endo/Hiroki Otsu) bidding for Modulo Dome Racing’s third straight title.
They ran atop the class for the first hour. But again, the difference came down to that FCY intervention, the BRP Audi took advantage, and built up a lead, where all they had to worry about was if the Audi could have enough fuel to get to the end after its last stint. With 45 minutes left, the Modulo Civic’s title hopes were dashed when a left-front puncture forced an unscheduled stop. They would go on to finish 5th in class.
Former Nissan young driver prospect Matsumoto took the BRP Audi to the chequered flag, the second win of the season, and their first ST-TCR title and the first for Audi after two misses in 2017 and 2018! It’s the first title for Birth Racing Project since a run of four straight ST-5 Championships from 2013-16, the second title for Matsumoto (who won ST-2 in 2011) and for gentleman driver Ohta (ST-4 champion in 2011), and the first for Shinohara, Audi Sport Japan’s protegé. Birth Racing Project announced that they will drop ST-TCR from their activities come 2020 to focus solely on the ST-Z class.
Completing the podium after starting from the back of the field due to a qualifying crash, and picking up an early drive-through penalty, was the #501 KCMG Annika Civic TCR (Paul Ip/Matthew Howson/Jim Ka To) in 2nd, and the #22 Waimarama Kizuna Racing RS3 (Kazutomo Robert Hori/Katsumasa Chiyo/”Kizuna”/Lee Jung Woo) in 3rd.
And in ST-3, just two points separated the #34 Techno First Lexus RC 350 of Yuya Tezuka, Riki Okusa, and Shuji Maejima from the pole-sitting #68 Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave Toyota Mark X of Hiroki Yoshida, Shigekazu Wakisaka, and Naoki Hattori.
Those two cars battled to the end as the #38 Advics muta Racing RC 350 of Makoto Hotta, Ryohei Sakaguchi, and Yuui Tsutsumi won the class. The GreenBrave Mark X finished 3rd behind the #15 Okabe Jidosha Motorsports Nissan Z34 (Masaaki Nagashima/Kazuomi Komatsu/Naohiro Furuya) in 2nd, and the Techno First RC 350 finished 4th. The two teams finished the year level on points.
But with a two race wins to one advantage, it was the Techno First RC 350 of Tezuka, Okusa, and Maejima that took the crown on the first tiebreaker, the first for Techno First Racing Team since 2014.
With the ST-2 title decided already, the #7 Shinryo Auto Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X (Masato Narisawa/Koji Endo/Turbo Asahi/Zene Okazaki) took its second win of the season. A gearbox issue saw the record-breaking seven-time champions at TOWA Intec Racing and their #59 DAMD Motul Subaru WRX STI (Manabu Osawa/Hitoshi Gotoh/Takuto Iguchi/Mizuki Ishizaka) finish 2nd in class to end a landmark season.
With that, another season of the Pirelli Super Taikyu Series comes to a close, and one of the fastest-growing pro-am endurance racing series in the world looks ahead to 2020.
Images courtesy of the Super Taikyu Organisation (STO)
