The #19 WedsSport Advan Toyota GR Supra of Yuji Kunimoto and Ritomo Miyata will start on pole position for the second time in the 2021 Autobacs Super GT Series after Miyata took top honours during qualifying for round seven of the Super GT season, the Motegi GT 300km Race.
With just two races left in the 2021 season, every point on offer would be crucial – including the bonus point for the pole position that was up for grabs on a beautiful autumn afternoon in Motegi. Clear skies and cool temperatures greeted the teams and the fans in attendance for Super GT’s second visit to Motegi this year.
Q1 for the GT500 class began just before three o’clock in the afternoon. The session was led by the #24 Realize Corporation Advan Nissan GT-R of Mitsunori Takaboshi, and the #17 Astemo Honda NSX-GT of Koudai Tsukakoshi. Both cars set identical lap times of 1’36.602, but because Takaboshi set his time first, he was classified first ahead of Tsukakoshi in a competitive session where less than three quarters of a second separated the entire field.
Kunimoto in the WedsSport GR Supra finished sixth to advance into Q2. Those eliminated from Q1 include the #1 Stanley NSX-GT of Naoki Yamamoto and Tadasuke Makino, which won from pole at Motegi in July. Yamamoto missed the cut line by 0.076 seconds as the session came to a close. Yamamoto can still provisionally clinch his third GT500 Drivers’ Championship tomorrow, if he finishes the weekend 22 points ahead of the next driver combination in the standings.
Other notables that missed the cut to Q2 were the #14 Eneos X Prime GR Supra (Kazuya Oshima/Kenta Yamashita) in ninth, the #64 Modulo NSX-GT (Takuya Izawa/Hiroki Otsu) in 11th, and the #37 KeePer TOM’s GR Supra (Ryo Hirakawa/Sacha Fenestraz) in twelfth. By the way, Otsu was given three penalty points for overtaking during a red flag in practice at Autopolis, bringing his total for the calendar year to six points. This gives the Modulo NSX a four-place grid penalty, meaning they will actually start 15th and last in tomorrow’s race.
Three Hondas, three Nissans, and two Toyotas were thus set to battle for pole position in Q2. After Takaboshi’s chart-topping run from Q1, team mate Daiki Sasaki followed up right where Takaboshi left off, and set the benchmark time of 1’36.071 with just over a minute to go – putting Kondo Racing in position to win their first GT500 pole position since the 2017 Suzuka 1000km.
But just behind Sasaki, Miyata had set outright fastest first and second sectors, and with a best final sector, he leapt to the top of the board with a 1’35.893 – the only car to dip into the sub-1’36 range all session. Miyata then had a chance to go even quicker on his second and final attack lap, but he lost just enough time in the final sector to come away with a 1’35.894. Either lap would have been enough, however, for Miyata to grab his second pole position of the season in the blue and gold WedsSport Supra. He had previously won pole for the Fuji 500km in May.
“Since we had finished the morning practice at the very bottom of the class for the first time, I never thought that we would get pole position,” Miyata remarked after qualifying. “When Kunimoto-san got us through Q1, the team with the top time was also a Yokohama tyre user, so I thought I also had a chance.”
“So, as it came time for the Q2 session, I told myself that this was going to be different from the morning practice. Since I had decided that I was just going to give it my best shot, I think that is what enabled me to get such a good time.”
Kunimoto and Miyata, who finished second at Motegi back in July, will try once again to capture the team’s first premier class win since October 2016 at Buriram, Thailand.
And they will lead the first all-Yokohama rubber front row in GT500 since the 2017 Suzuka 1000km, with the #24 Realize GT-R of Takaboshi and Sasaki finishing second, for their best qualifying result of the season. Sasaki powered Kondo Racing to their most recent GT500 victory, at this same circuit in November 2016, but it’s been a long time since for the embattled underdogs of the Nissan fleet.
The #8 ARTA NSX-GT of Tomoki Nojiri and Nirei Fukuzumi led the way for Honda, qualifying third fastest after setting the quickest time in the morning’s Practice session. Nojiri and Fukuzumi won the seventh round of 2020 at Motegi, and are hoping to secure back-to-back victories to propel them to another late rally in the championship hunt. They’ll share the second row with the #12 Calsonic Impul GT-R (Kazuki Hiramine/Nobuharu Matsushita), who qualified fourth.
The #16 Red Bull Motul Mugen NSX-GT (Ukyo Sasahara/Toshiki Oyu) continued their good qualifying form in fifth, ahead of the #39 Denso Kobelco SARD GR Supra (Heikki Kovalainen/Yuichi Nakayama) in sixth, the #23 Motul Autech GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda/Ronnie Quintarelli) in seventh, and the #17 Astemo NSX-GT of Tsukakoshi and Bertrand Baguette in eighth. Baguette ran wide through turn ten on his last lap, resulting in his fastest time – which would have put him seventh on the grid – being removed for track limits infringement.
GT300 qualifying produced a few surprises, including a first-time pole winner as the #18 UPGarage Honda NSX GT3 of Takashi Kobayashi and Teppei Natori won Team UPGarage’s first ever GT300 pole award.
Kobayashi advanced out of Q1 Group A by just over a tenth of a second, as the #11 Gainer TanaX Nissan GT-R GT3 of Hironobu Yasuda led Group A ahead of the #34 Yogibo NSX GT3 of Ryo Michigami in second, and the championship-leading #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport of Takuto Iguchi in third. Outside the Group A cut line, the #52 Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave Toyota GR Supra (Hiroki Yoshida/Kohta Kawaai) missed out on a Q2 berth by less than a tenth of a second, while the #31 Toyota GR Sport Prius PHV apr GT (Koki Saga/Yuhki Nakayama), two weeks removed from a pole-to-win victory at Autopolis, finished last in the group and will start from the rear of the field in 28th.
The other major shock came in Q1 Group B, where rookie Giuliano Alesi put the #35 arto Lexus RC F GT3 on top of the time sheets – the first time in arto Team Thailand’s history that they’ve led a competitive Super GT session! Below the cut line were the likes of the #65 LEON Pyramid Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Naoya Gamou/Togo Suganami), and the #9 NAC Pacific CarGuy Ferrari 488 GT3 (Kei Cozzolino/Naoki Yokomizo), the latter of which was the fastest in Practice.
In Q2, it looked as if the #61 Subaru BRZ of Hideki Yamauchi, despite carrying 75 kilogrammes of Success Ballast, would have pole position locked down. Yamauchi set a new course record with a 1’45.669 on his first flying lap, with still over three minutes left in the session.
Natori had a strong lap going through the first three sectors, but a slow final sector left him unable to take the top spot on his first flying lap. But on his second flying lap, Natori put it all together, snatching his first career GT300 pole position with a time of 1’45.654, just 0.015 seconds ahead.
Natori’s maiden pole position is also the first for Team UPGarage since they took pole for the 2016 Suzuka 1000km in their previous Toyota MC86. Their only win in the series came back in 2018 at the season opener in Okayama.
“I feel just great!” exclaimed Natori, the newly-crowned Super Formula Lights champion. “The car’s condition was so good. But I made mistakes in both my first and second time attacks, so I am not really satisfied with my performance. But I am very happy that we got pole position anyway. I thought a course record was within our reach, but to tell the truth, I wanted to get a time that put us even further ahead of second place.
Second place is where the Subaru BRZ of Iguchi and Yamauchi will start, their fourth consecutive front-row start of the season – and a great place from which to potentially clinch the GT300 Championship on Sunday.
If Iguchi and Yamauchi win the race from the front row, they would need the #56 Realize/Nissan Automobile Technical College GT-R (Kiyoto Fujinami/Joao Paulo de Oliveira) to finish fourth or lower, and the #244 Takanoko-no-yu GR Supra (Atsushi Miyake/Yuui Tsutsumi) to finish third or lower, to clinch the first GT300 championship for Subaru, R&D Sport, and their drivers. Fujinami and Oliveira qualified seventh, with Miyake and Tsutsumi qualifying 11th. If these three cars finish where they start the race, this would also clinch the championship for the #61 Subaru and their drivers.
Rounding out the top three from GT300 qualifying was the #55 ARTA NSX GT3 (Shinichi Takagi/Ren Sato), putting two Hondas on the first two rows at their home venue. They were followed by the #88 JLOC Lamborghini Huracan GT3 (Takashi Kogure/Yuya Motojima) in fourth, the #21 Hitotsuyama Audi R8 LMS GT3 (Shintaro Kawabata/Takuro Shinohara) in a season-best fifth, the #60 Syntium LM Corsa GR Supra (Hiroki Yoshimoto/Shunsuke Kohno) in sixth, then the #56 Realize GT-R GT3 of Fujinami and Oliveira.
The #25 Hoppy Porsche 911 GT3-R (Takamitsu Matsui/Kimiya Sato) matches their best qualifying result of the season in eighth, followed by Gainer’s two Nissan GT-Rs; the #11 of Yasuda and Katsuyuki Hiranaka in ninth, and the #10 Gainer TanaX with Impul GT-R (Kazuki Hoshino/Keishi Ishikawa) in tenth. The #35 arto RC F GT3 that led Group B qualifying, will start 15th after Sean Walkinshaw ran conservatively in Q2 to protect the team’s tyres for the race.
Sunday’s 63-lap race starts at 13:00 JST (local time) / 4:00 GMT / 5:00 CET / midnight EST. Will we see at least one champion crowned before the final race of the season at Fuji Speedway on 28 November?
Images courtesy of the GT Association (GTA).
