Floral Racing with ABSSA Motorsport have put their #290 Floral/Uematsu/FirstGarage McLaren 720S GT3 on pole position for Sunday’s Suzuka S-Tai 5 hour race, the fifth and penultimate round of the 2021 Super Taikyu Series powered by Hankook.
The format for qualifying was slightly different this time out, with the remnants of typhoon No.14 forcing most of Saturday morning’s activities to be moved to the afternoon. The grid would still be determined based on the aggregate time of the teams’ first two registered drivers. But the decision was made on Friday that the “A Driver” block of qualifying would be postponed until after the conclusion of the “B Driver” block. This meant that, in the top three classes, the Platinum and Expert graded drivers would go first, followed by the Gentleman drivers.
After rain showers all morning, the conditions were fine and dry in time for the start of qualifying at 14:00 JST.
The orange and white #290 McLaren led both phases of qualifying. First, in the B Driver block, Keita Sawa put up an impressive time of 2’02.482 to lead the way. Sawa was the only driver to break the 2’03 threshold. The A Driver block was surprisingly close, with the top three drivers within a quarter of a second of the top. This time, it was Tadao Uematsu – who missed the last round at Autopolis – that put the McLaren on top with a 2’05.005. The aggregate time was 4’07.487, enough to secure the pole position for Uematsu, Sawa, and co-drivers Shintaro Kawabata and Yuji Ide.
Floral Racing with ABSSA have also picked up two bonus points in the ST-X class Championship, moving them to just nine points behind the #777 D’station Racing Aston Martin AMR Vantage GT3 (Satoshi Hoshino/Tomonobu Fujii/Tsubasa Kondo). D’station Racing can still clinch the ST-X title on Sunday, however, if they are able to outscore Floral/ABSSA by more than 13 points.
The #16 Porsche Center Okazaki 911 GT3-R (Hiroaki Nagai/Yuta Kamimura/Yuichi Nakayama) qualified in second, just 0.056 seconds quicker than the #777 D’station Vantage GT3 on aggregate. The #31 apr Racing Lexus RC F GT3 (Hideki Nagai/Koki Saga/Kazuto Kotaka) qualified in fourth, and the #81 GTNET Daishin Nissan GT-R GT3 (Noboyuki Oyagi/Takayuki Aoki/Kiyoto Fujinami/Ryuichiro Oyagi) was fifth.
ST-1 pole (sixth overall) went to the #2 Syntium Apple KTM X-Bow GTX (Taiyou Iida/Hiroki Katoh/Kazuho Takahashi/Hiroki Yoshimoto), which outqualified the #71 CS/Daiwa N Trade Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (Masayoshi Oyama/Tatsuya Tanigawa/Ken Yamamoto/Makio Saito) by three seconds. Meanwhile, the #38 muta Racing Toyota GR Supra (Yuui Tsutsumi/Ryohei Sakaguchi/Makoto Hotta) qualified a distant third in class. K’s Frontier KTM Cars now have a nine point lead over the Tracy Sports-run #38 GR Supra, and can clinch the ST-1 title with a win and the Supra finishing third.
In the ST-Z (FIA GT4) class, Corolla Shin-Ibaraki (C.S.I) Racing won their third pole in the last four rounds with their #311 Fabulous/GRMN Toyota GR Supra GT4 driven by Hirokazu Suzuki, Rintaro Kubo, Yusuke Shiotsu, and Kimiya Sato. Since this car did not enter the Fuji 24 Hours, this is the third straight pole for them in as many races as it has entered.
Once again it was a comprehensive run to pole position. Kubo was the fastest driver in the B Driver block by over a second, and Suzuki led the A Driver block by over 1.2 seconds. Their aggregate time was 2.617 seconds quicker than the #47 D’station Aston Martin AMR Vantage GT4 (Tatsuya Hoshino/Manabu Orido/Takuro Shinohara/Kenji Hama), which was second in its class.
Going through the rest of the ST-Z field as they qualified in order; the #108 Future GPX Cyber Formula Racing with RFC GR Supra (Toshio Suzuki/Takeshi Matsumoto/Seiya Jin) qualified third. Suzuki, 66, was granted dispensation to compete as a Gentleman driver due to his age. The #500 Team 5Zigen Mercedes-AMG GT4 (Ryuichiro Otsuka/Toshihiro Kaneishi/Kakunoshin Ohta) was fourth, the #20 SS/YZ Studie BMW M4 GT4 (Tomohide Yamaguchi/Seiji Ara/Yuya Sakamoto) was fifth, and the championship-leading #3 Endless AMG GT4 (Yudai Uchida/Hideki Yamauchi/Togo Suganami/Ryo Ogawa) was sixth.
Also, the #111 Hiroshima Toyopet Racing GR Supra (Toshiyuki Matsuda/Yuga Furutani/Yasutaka Hinoi/Ryo Hirakawa) will start from the back of the Group 1 grid after Matsuda could not qualify within 110 percent of the quickest time in the A Driver block.
ST-TCR pole went to the #75 Otoginokuni Honda Civic TCR (Kuniyuki Haga/Yoshikazu Sobu/Shigetomo Shimono/Shingo Wada), two seconds clear over the #97 Racer/Honda Cars Okegawa Civic TCR (Mitsuhiro Endo/Shinji Nakano/Syun Koide). Team Noah, the only team to run every race this season, can clinch the ST-TCR title if their #75 Civic finishes the race.
The ST-3 class pole was closely fought, but in the end, it was Tracy Sports’ #39 Air Buster/Winmax Lexus RC 350 (Yusuke Tomibayashi/Kazuya Oshima [b.1997]/Hirotaka Ishii) that snatched the pole for the Group 2 grid by just two tenths over the #62 HELM Motorsports RC 350 (Yuya Hiraki/Tomoki Takahashi/Reiji Hiraki). Takahashi outqualified Oshima in the B block by 0.012 seconds. However, in the A Block, sim racing champion Tomibayashi – who’s just been named to D’station Racing’s squad for the upcoming Virtual Le Mans Series – was more than two tenths faster than Yuya Hiraki, which settled the battle for ST-3 pole. The #39 Tracy Sports with Delta crew now leads the ST-3 Championship by 8.5 points.
The #41 Air Buster/55Garage RC 350 (Yuma Shoji/Yoshihiro Ito/Ryuta Ukai) was third in class, ahead of the #52 Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave Toyota Crown RS (Naoki Hattori/Hiroki Yoshida/Kohta Kawaai), and the #244 Max Racing Z34.
Down in ST-2, Shinryo Racing Team’s two Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution Xs finished 1-2 in qualifying – led by the #6 Lancer Evo X (Tomohiro Tomimasu/Yasushi Kikuchi/Masazumi Ohashi), ahead of the championship-leading #7 Lancer (Yoshiki Fujii/Masato Narisawa/Keisuke Anzai/Shingo Imai). The #225 Kobe Toyopet Motorsports Toyota GR Yaris (Seita Nonaka/Hibiki Taira/Miki Onaga/Kengo Ichijo) was third in class – this is Taira’s first race since recovering from COVID-19.
The #7 Shinryo Lancer Evo X can clinch the ST-2 Championship by outscoring the #225 KTMS GR Yaris by five or more points in tomorrow’s race.
The #310 GR Garage Mito Inter Toyota 86 (Sho Tsuboi/Shinya Hosokawa/Fuma Horio) won ST-4 class pole ahead of the #884 Hayashi Telempu Shade Racing 86 (Yuji Kunimoto/Keishi Ishikawa/Eijiro Shimizu), closing Shade Racing’s lead in the championship to eight points.
And in ST-5, the Mazda Roadsters were the head of the class, led by Over Drive/Avantech Racing Team’s #456 odula/Star5 Roadster (Riku Hashimoto/Kousei Kanto/Tatsuya Osaki/Koji Obara). The #72 Nihon Automobile College Roadster (Makoto Kanai/Tetsuya Yamano/Anna Inotsume) was second, the #66 odula/Tone Roadster (Takayuki Takechi/Tatsuya Ota/Takahisa Ohno/Kyosuke Inomata) third, and the #50 Love Drive Roadster (Koji Yamanishi/Yoshihito Shinoda/Hiroyuki Matsumura) fourth.
Over Drive’s #66 Roadster still leads the ST-5 championship, but their sister car, the #456, has closed the margin down to eleven points after qualifying.
This weekend, the hydrogen-powered #32 Toyota Corolla Sport “H2 Concept” entered by ROOKIE Racing makes its third appearance. In the six weeks since the last race at Autopolis, Toyota has said that power output has been “improved to the same level as a gasoline powered engine”, while the refuelling time has decreased dramatically – from five minutes at Fuji, to three minutes at Autopolis, and now it is expected to take just two minutes to refuel the car from both sides.
Kawasaki Heavy Industries has joined the project, helping transport hydrogen sourced from Australian lignite overseas to be used as a fuel source – alongside their existing source of clean hydrogen produced by the Fukushima Hydrogen Energy Research Field.
Takuto Iguchi and Masahiro Sasaki’s qualifying times were still between the pace of the ST-4 and ST-5 runners, putting them 35th in the overall qualifying classification. As usual, Takamitsu Matsui and Toyota Motor Corporation President, Akio “Morizo” Toyoda, will share driving duties with Iguchi and Sasaki.
Live coverage of the Suzuka S-Tai is available to view for free on the Super Taikyu Series official YouTube channel. Green flag time is 11:30 JST / 3:30 BST / 4:30 CEST / 22:30 EDT.
Images courtesy of Suzuka Circuit / Mobilityland Corporation
