TGR Team Eneos ROOKIE scored their first victory in the Autobacs Super GT Series, as the #14 Eneos X Prime Toyota GR Supra of Kazuya Oshima and Kenta Yamashita won a thrilling season-opening Takanokono Hotel Okayama GT 300km Race at Okayama International Circuit.
Sunday’s 82-lap race was the main event in Super GT’s return to the 3.703 kilometre Okayama circuit for the first time since 2019. Thousands of fans made the voyage, a sign of better days to come. And these fans were greeted with beautiful spring weather, and the sights and sounds of 44 cars racing together across two classes of competition.
Here’s how the race unfolded in the GT500 class.
Polesitter Sena Sakaguchi led from the green flag aboard his #37 KeePer TOM’s GR Supra, followed closely by the veteran Oshima in the #14 Eneos Supra. Sakaguchi may have been running just his second race as a GT500 driver, filling in for the absent Sacha Fenestraz – but he showed no signs of being overwhelmed by the responsibility as he maintained his lead.
The first Safety Car intervention came out on Lap 8, when the #30 Toyota GR Sport Prius PHV apr GT of Hiroaki Nagai was spun off and left stranded on top of the inner kerb at the Hairpin Corner. Damage to the diffuser caused the #30 Prius to retire once it got back to the pits. The race resumed from Lap 13, with Sakaguchi still at the head of a pack of five Toyota GR Supras: Oshima in 2nd, Yuhi Sekiguchi in the #36 au TOM’s GR Supra in 3rd, Heikki Kovalainen in the #39 Denso Kobelco SARD GR Supra running 4th, and Yuji Tachikawa in 5th in the #38 ZENT GR Supra.
Oshima started to pull away from Sekiguchi, and as he and race leader Sakaguchi drove through GT300 traffic, the two leading Toyotas ran tail-to-nose, separated by less than a second – while a number of battles began to heat up further back in the pack.
Then the race took a drastic turn on Lap 33, when the #360 RunUp Rivaux Nissan GT-R GT3 of rookie gentleman driver Yudai Uchida suffered a blown right-front tyre, leaving a stream of debris along the east straightaway and eventually leaving the car stranded at Williams Corner. In anticipation of a second Safety Car, every GT500 car bar one rushed into the pit lane in unison.
The chaotic scenes in the relatively narrow Okayama pit lane were reminiscent of the infamous traffic jam at Sportsland Sugo in 2015, the incident that caused Super GT to unconditionally close the pit lane during the Safety Car to begin with.
As it turned out, a second Safety Car was deployed to clean up the chunks of debris. The big winner was the #14 Eneos Supra, which jumped to the net race lead with Kenta Yamashita at the wheel. The #37 KeePer TOM’s Supra of Ryo Hirakawa, on the other hand, had lost three positions in pit lane.
The #24 Realize Corporation Advan Nissan GT-R (Mitsunori Takaboshi/Daiki Sasaki) stayed out in the lead during the second safety car, but quickly got out of the way of the cars that had pitted behind them when the race resumed on Lap 40. The running order now was Yamashita in 1st, Sho Tsuboi in the #36 au TOM’s Supra in 2nd, Yuichi Nakayama in the #39 Denso Supra in 3rd, and Hirakawa down in 4th.
Yamashita and Tsuboi then began to break away from the field and engage in a tense, dramatic chase for the lead – a battle of two of the best and brightest Toyota Gazoo Racing Driver Challenge (TGR-DC) graduates. Tsuboi rattled off a string of fast laps, and tried setting up overtakes by going deeper into Attwood Corner, but Yamashita’s tough, yet fair defence kept him in front.
The two leaders remained in this deadlock for more than 20 laps, navigating their way through traffic with incredible poise. Every time it looked as if Tsuboi would have the opportunity to make the pass for the lead, Yamashita would shut the door. On Lap 71, Tsuboi got on the outside of Yamashita at the First Corner to set up a pass around the inside at Williams, but Tsuboi ran two wheels off the road, and Yamashita maintained his narrow lead.
With eight laps to go, Tsuboi tucked into the slipstream of Yamashita, trying to pass around the outside of the Hairpin Corner to get the inside line through Revolver and Piper. The brakes on the #36 au Supra locked up, and Tsuboi drove off into the gravel trap at the end of the Hairpin. He was able to continue, but this mistake decided the race for the win in favour of the #14 Eneos X Prime GR Supra of 2019 GT500 Champions Oshima and Yamashita.
It was the first Super GT win for ROOKIE Racing, who made their debut last year replacing Team LeMans in the Toyota GT500 fleet. This weekend was their first race not only with a new title sponsor, but also as a fully-independent team with a new crew – after running as a de facto second car from Team Cerumo in 2020.
Oshima picked up his seventh career GT500 victory. He had scored the last win for an Eneos-liveried Toyota (Lexus SC430) back at the 2013 season finale in Twin Ring Motegi, and fittingly, gave this new Eneos Toyota its first victory to kick off the 2021 season.
“When I drove in the first half, the car felt good, and the tires held out to the end of my stint. My pace was faster than the leading car #37, but I just couldn’t find a chance to pass it,” said Oshima. “But I stayed right on its tail and decided to trust the rest to our team’s pit work and my teammate ‘Yamaken’. Since we are a team that started from zero, I never thought they could achieve such a great feat as this opening round win. I am really proud of everyone.”
For Yamashita, who returned to Japan full-time in 2021 after declining a second year in the FIA World Endurance Championship due to personal reasons, it is his third career GT500 victory. “Watching the first half of the race, I was impressed by how fast Oshima-san was,” said Yamashita. “Then, when he came back for the pit stop, the team did their work perfectly and were able to get me out on the track in the lead.”
“Both the car and the tires were good, so I thought I could hold that lead to the finish. But I wasn’t able to keep as fast a pace as I hoped, so it came down to a battle with Tsuboi-san. At the end my tires were worn, but they held out to the finish and we won.”
Tsuboi was able to close the margin to Yamashita down to just 1.187 seconds at the end, but he and co-driver Sekiguchi were resigned to finishing in 2nd place after that one mistake in the closing laps. Still, a podium to open the season was a fine result.
TOM’s Racing got both of their cars on the podium, with Hirakawa and Sakaguchi finishing 3rd in the #37 KeePer TOM’s Supra. Hirakawa spent a number of laps behind the Denso Supra of Nakayama, and was finally able to get past on Lap 56 – but not before losing touch with the leading duo ahead of them, finishing with a 13-second gap to the winners.
Nakayama consolidated a fourth-place finish for the #39 Denso SARD Supra, giving Toyota a sweep of the top four, including all three spots on the podium – reminiscent of the 2020 season opener at Fuji Speedway, when Toyota swept the top five. Ironically enough, the same three cars were on the podium in both races – the #14, the #36, and the #37. Toyota seemed to be in a class of their own all day, as their RIA4G engine ran more powerfully at the designated 90.2kg/h fuel flow rate than the engines of their rival manufacturers.
The best of the Hondas was the #17 Astemo NSX-GT of Koudai Tsukakoshi and Bertrand Baguette, who moved up four places during the race and finished in 5th – breaking up a potential Toyota top-five sweep, and finishing just four tenths behind the Denso Supra of Kovalainen & Nakayama. Tachikawa and Hiroaki Ishiura finished 6th in the #38 ZENT GR Supra.
Honda may not have been in the fight for the win, but the three Bridgestone-clad Hondas consolidated good points after a tough qualifying: The #8 ARTA NSX-GT (Tomoki Nojiri/Nirei Fukuzumi) moved up seven spots during the race to finish in 7th, and the defending champions’ #1 Stanley NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Hideki Mutoh) finished 8th, with two-time GT500 Champion Yamamoto moving up five places in his closing stint.
The Nissan camp suffered a stroke of misfortune on Lap 50: The #23 Motul Autech GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda/Ronnie Quintarelli) got a great start in the first half, as Quintarelli moved from 12th to 6th. But on Lap 50, Matsuda was caught up in a multi-car accident at Revolver Corner, and suffered terminal damage to the right-front suspension.
The #3 CraftSports Motul GT-R (Kohei Hirate/Katsumasa Chiyo) finished 9th – the highest-ranking Nissan, and the only Michelin runners to place inside the top ten. After being spun out in the Lap 50 incident, the #12 Calsonic Impul GT-R (Kazuki Hiramine/Nobuharu Matsushita) recovered to score the last point in 10th.
In the GT300 class, defending series champions Kiyoto Fujinami and João Paulo de Oliveira started their championship defence in perfect fashion, winning the race in their #56 Realize Nissan Automobile Technical College GT-R GT3 for Kondo Racing.
The GT300 race gave four of last year’s title contenders a chance to showcase their strengths as title favourites again in 2021. Polesitter Hironobu Yasuda led from the green flag in the #11 Gainer TanaX GT-R, while young sophomore Kohta Kawaai trailed him aboard the #52 Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave Toyota GR Supra. Fujinami, who took the start in the Realize GT-R, got past Togo Suganami and the #65 LEON Pyramid Mercedes-AMG GT3 for third place before the first Safety Car intervention for the collision between Nagai and the #34 Yogibo Honda NSX GT3 of Ryo Michigami, which left Nagai stuck at the Hairpin.
Yasuda and Kawaai ran tail-to-nose throughout most of the first half of the race. Kawaai’s GT300-spec Supra was much quicker through the corners, but the twin-turbo V6 of Yasuda’s GT-R had much more power on tap to stay ahead on the straightaways.
The pit window had just opened up for the GT300 front runners when Uchida’s incident in the #360 RunUp GT-R brought out the second Safety Car, and just as the pit lane fracas impacted the running order in GT500, it did the same in GT300 as well. The Gainer GT-R, Realize GT-R, and LEON AMG all rushed into the pits on Lap 31 – and the Realize GT-R, now in the hands of J.P. Oliveira, took the net lead of the race.
Once all of the GT300 runners made their compulsory pit stops to change drivers and all four tyres, Oliveira was in 1st, ahead of the LEON AMG of Naoya Gamou in 2nd, the GreenBrave Supra of Hiroki Yoshida in 3rd, and the #11 Gainer GT-R of Katsuyuki Hiranaka dropped to net fifth due to the time lost in the pits, but worked its way up to fourth by passing the #2 muta Lotus Evora MC of Hiroki Katoh & Ryohei Sakaguchi, which had spent most of the race in the top five.
Unfortunately, Ryohei Sakaguchi was the unfortunate victim of the multi-car accident that took out the GT500-class Motul GT-R, his black and gold Lotus MC left with nowhere to go but careening into the side of the Nissan into the gravel. The #2 Lotus retired with just 47 laps completed, spoiling a great day for the car’s first race under the stewardship of INGING Motorsport.
It was a tense four-car standoff between the veteran drivers Oliveira, Gamou, Yoshida, and Hiranaka, who ran together for most of the race, making no mistakes over the remaining laps. Oliveira in the Yokohama-clad Nissan was able to keep Gamou in the Bridgestone-clad Mercedes at bay, however, and the four cars finished tail-to-nose with the #56 Realize GT-R of Oliveira and Fujinami taking the win to open the 2021 season, completing 77 laps in the process.
This was the fourth career GT300 class win for Fujinami, and the third in GT300 for Oliveira – who combined for two wins last season en route to the GT300 Drivers’ Championship.
“Since we had qualified better than I had thought, I thought that we might have a chance to be among the leaders – but I never thought that we would win the race,” said Fujinami. “The timing of the Safety Car intervention and the condition of the car were both good, but I feel that more than anything it was the team’s pit work that got us into the lead. And then JP-san, as always, ran strongly though this tough race. I really want to thank all of the people who cheered for us today.”
“There were a lot of mishaps in the early part of the race, and after [the team] got me out there in the lead, car #65 was right on my tail – so I pushed hard from the beginning, but there was no room for mistakes,” said Oliveira. “Still, I am very happy that we were able to start off the season with this win. And I am very glad that I have been able to savor this win with Fujinami-san, who fought together with me to win last year’s title.”
Finishing just 0.454 seconds back in 2nd was the LEON AMG of Gamou and Suganami, the duo that finished 3rd in last year’s championship standings.
Last year’s championship runners-up, Yoshida and Kawaai, finished 3rd in their GT300-spec GreenBrave Supra, only 0.206s behind the LEON AMG. Even without their alternate pit strategies available to them this weekend, both the Bridgestone-clad cars, the LEON AMG and GreenBrave Supra, showed their overall strength as they and their drivers completed the GT300 podium.
The #11 Gainer GT-R of Hiranaka and Yasuda finished 4th, just 0.361 seconds off the podium – meaning that the top four GT300 finishers were covered by just 1.021 seconds over the line!
One of the two new V8-powered GR Supra GT300s, the #244 Takanoko-no-yu GR Supra of Atsushi Miyake and Yuui Tsutsumi, capped off a fantastic weekend with a 5th-place finish – the first top ten finish in Super GT for Max Racing, in just their second year in the series! Their best finish of 2020 with their old Lexus RC F GT3 was 13th in Round 2 at Fuji. One of the two remaining Lexus in the field, the #96 K-Tunes RC F GT3 of Super GT iron man Morio Nitta and rookie Hibiki Taira, finished in 6th.
From 21st on the grid, the #25 Hoppy Porsche 911 GT3-R (Takamitsu Matsui/Kimiya Sato) drove a cool, clean race to finish in the points in 7th. The other new GR Supra on the block, the #60 Syntium LM Corsa GR Supra (Hiroki Yoshimoto/Shunsuke Kohno), finished 8th. The #88 JLOC Lamborghini Huracán GT3 (Takashi Kogure/Yuya Motojima) finished in 9th, the first car scored one lap off the lead. And in 10th was the second Gainer Nissan, the #10 Gainer TanaX with Impul GT-R (Kazuki Hoshino/Keishi Ishikawa).
Unlucky to miss out on points were the likes of the #31 Toyota Prius (Koki Saga/Yuichi Nakayama) and the #55 ARTA NSX GT3 (Shinichi Takagi/Ren Sato). Sato collided with Saga as they battled for 7th – the #31 Toyota dropped to 19th, while the #55 ARTA NSX retired eight laps short of the finish, following damage and a drive-through penalty for Sato’s contact.
The new #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi) struggled to a 15th place finish, unable to find speed throughout the race as they struggled with the added weight of the GT300 special BoP.
Up next on the 2021 Super GT calendar is the return of the series’ Golden Week race at Fuji Speedway, the Takanokono Hotel Fuji GT 500km Race. Practice and Qualifying is on Monday, 3 May, and the race is held on Tuesday, 4 May.
Images courtesy of the GT Association (GTA)
