The new season of the Autobacs SUPER GT Series starts just like the last one ended, with both the #14 Eneos X Prime GR Supra and the #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport on pole position in GT500 and GT300 respectively.
But unlike last year, when Kenta Yamashita put the ROOKIE Racing squad on the highest position on the leaderboard, it was Kazuya Oshima emulating the deeds of his teammate after only barely missing out doing the same at last year’s season opener, which they eventually won after starting from second.
After yesterday’s rainy arrival day, Okayama International Circuit showed itself one of its most beautiful sides with a sunny and blue sky as well as a pleasantly warm 17°C air temperature. Since the strong wind of the morning hours didn’t subside, the track temperature remained at a similar 21°C.
GT500 first-round qualifying was dominated by the Toyota camp, with five out of the six GR Supras finding their way into Q2. Following his strong performance during pre-season testing in March, defending champion Sho Tsuboi (#36 au TOM’S GR Supra) lead the field with a strong 1:17.177, beating Sena Sakaguchi (#19 WedsSport Advan GR Supra) by only 0.024 seconds. Last year’s polesitter, who finally stepped up for a full-time GT500 ride this year, was the reason for a brief moment of shock when he spun immediately after his fastest lap. Thankfully, the 22-year-old was able to continue and immediately made his way back to the pits, and since only local yellow flags were needed, Sakaguchi got to keep his time.
Yamashita put the eventual pole-winning Eneos X Prime GR Supra third, followed by reigning champion Yuhi Sekiguchi in the #39 DENSO Kobelco SARD GR Supra. The fastest of the Nissan camp was the Yokohama-clad Daiki Sasaki (#24 Realize Corporation Advan Z), followed by the sole Honda advancing to Q2: Naoki Yamamoto (#100 Stanley NSX-GT). At the last second, Kazuki Hiramine put the #12 Calsonic Impul Z seventh after Sakaguchi’s spin meant that he had to abort his previous attack lap. The eighth fastest was Hiroaki Ishiura in the Zent Cerumo GR Supra.
The result meant that only two of the four new Nissan Z cars made it into the final leg of qualifying. A massive surprise following this morning’s practice session, where both Michelin-clad #23 Motul Autech Z and the #3 Craftsports Motul Z occupied the first and third spots on the leaderboard. This was due to a more conservative tyre choice, as both teams went for a harder tyre compound compared to their Free Practice run. While NISMO duo Ronnie Quintarelli and Tsugio Matsuda will start from ninth tomorrow, NDDP Racing’s Katsumasa Chiyo and Mitsunori Takaboshi will have to find their way into the points coming from P14. Another big upset was the 13th place of Sacha Fenestraz in the #37 KeePer TOM’s GR Supra, who cited a few mistakes on his attack lap in a video posted by the team on Twitter.
Honda’s first qualifying with the Type S version of their NSX-GT didn’t go any smoother. Only Team Kunimitsu made it into Q2 as the marque’s other crews failed to clear that hurdle – a similar picture to last year’s Okayama round, when only two NSX-GT survived Q1. The fastest of the bunch was 2021 Super Formula champion Tomoki Nojiri (#8 ARTA NSX-GT) on P10, followed by Hiroki Otsu (#64 Modulo NSX-GT) and Koudai Tsukakoshi (#17 Astemo NSX-GT). With about five minutes to go in the session, Toshiki Oyu was forced to slowly bring his #16 Red Bull Mugen NSX-GT back to the pits due to an engine problem, further adding to the manufacturer’s headache after qualifying.
Q2 started with almost all cars immediately dashing onto the track. Only Kazuya Oshima remained in the pits for a good three minutes to save his tyres. Kohei Hirate, who switched from NDDP Racing to Kondo Racing this year, took first blood in his maiden qualifying on Yokohama tyres, but quickly got beaten by Yuji Kunimoto in the #19 WedsSport Advan GR Supra. However, the 2016 Super Formula champion pushed a bit too hard and got his fastest time deleted due to a track limit infraction, dropping him down to eighth on the grid.
Only doing a total of five laps, Kazuya Oshima set his pole position winning time of 1:17.251 in the final seconds of the session. The 2019 GT500 Champion’s lap was right on the razor’s edge, as he revealed he was close to spinning out: “I also went a bit wide in the double-hairpin, so it wasn’t a perfect lap,” he explained after qualifying. With his sixth career pole position, Oshima ended a six-year long drought, with his last pole dating all the way back to the 2016 Sportsland SUGO round.
“I’ve been very close in the past few years, always coming second. So, to be honest, I’m very happy to finally be on pole position again in a long time. Since Rookie Racing got established last year (as an independent team), we built a new facility and recruited a lot of reinforcements. The team has improved a lot compared to last year.”
One of the new recruits is former TOM’S chief engineer Tsutomo Tojo, who’s overseeing the engineering side of the operation, working closely with chief engineer Kazuya Abe. Their hard work over the winter paid off, as Oshima described the feeling of the car as pretty much perfect: “We had a very productive pre-season test, so I was confident that if we don’t make any mistakes, we would be able to get in this position. In fact, the feeling of the car was really good right from the beginning. We had to make a few adjustments, but everything went in the right direction. In qualifying the car was exactly the way I wanted it to be, so I have the impression that the car is coming along almost perfectly.”
Finishing fourth in this morning’s practice session, ROOKIE Racing wasn’t necessarily one of the main favourites for pole position. Even Kenta Yamashita described as his Q1 lap, which was good enough for third in the segment, as ‘not quick’: “My Q1 wasn’t that fast, but since the car was in great shape, I thought that Oshima-san might be able to get pole position.” His goal for tomorrow’s race? Escaping from the pack. But despite aiming to repeat year’s victory, Yamashita hopes for a close race: “I think the fans would enjoy it, if we can have a close race like last year.”
Completing the all-Toyota first row was Yuichi Nakayama in the #39 DENSO Kobelco SARD GR Supra, who missed out on his very first GT500 pole position by only 0.136 seconds. It was the first time in a long time that Nakayama was actually in charge of Q2, a suggestion by his new teammate Yuhi Sekiguchi following Nakayama’s practice run. “Since I was carrying the expectations of the team, I felt the pressure for the first time in a very long time. It was a tense qualifying,” said Nakayama.
Splitting the Toyotas in row two is Tadasuke Makino, who put his #100 Stanley NSX-GT third. The result came as a bit of a surprise for him, as the team was struggling this morning. “We didn’t start so well into the weekend and went through a lot of trial and error. It was great that Yamamoto passed me the baton after Q1 with such a close time difference. But I was only running 1:19 lap times in the morning, so compared to that, Q2 felt like a whole different world.”
Three-time GT500 champion Yuji Tachikawa put the #38 Zent Cerumo GR Supra fourth, eager to take the team’s first win in almost three years. Fastest of the Nissan Z squad was Kohei Hirate, qualifying fifth fastest in the #24 Realize Corporation Advan Z, making Yokohama the second strongest tyre marque behind Bridgestone this weekend.
In his first ever GT500 qualifying, new #36 au TOM’S GR Supra recruit Giuliano Alesi couldn’t quite match the time of his teammate Sho Tsuboi, losing out by 0.657 seconds to the reigning champion. The son of the former F1 superstar Jean Alesi qualified sixth ahead of Bertrand Baguette (#12 Calsonic Impul Z), who described his first qualifying with Nissan as a solid result. The former Honda pilot is confident in their race pace after Free Practice.
Similar to last year, both GT500 and GT300 were administered a special Balance of Performance to slow down the speeds on the narrow Okayama International Circuit due to safety reasons. However, that didn’t stop the “sanbyaku” class from smashing the previous track record from 2019.
First was Kei Cozzolino (#9 PACIFIC hololive NAC Ferrari), who to his own surprise annihilated Nirei Fukuzumi’s record set in 2019 with a 1:24.717. In fact, Cozzolino would only find out about his achievement during his TV interview with J SPORTS pit reporter Shima Takeuchi. But the new record of the Tokyo-born 34-year-old wouldn’t hold for very long, as a bunch of cars would go even faster in Q2.
Last year’s polesitting #11 Gainer Tanax GT-R missed the cut in Q1’s Group A after “The Emperor” himself, Satoshi Motoyama, put Team LeMans’s EVO II Audi R8 LMS in a strong seventh in a last-second effort. A great confidence boost for the squad, whose team owner Yoshinori Katayama (father of co-driver Yoshiaki) is also the president of the Okayama International Circuit.
Also making their way to Q2 were the #18 UPGarage NSX GT3, muta Racing’s new #2 Toyota GR86 GT, the #96 K-tunes RC F GT3, #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport, as well as both JLOC Lamborghini Huracans, who came as one of the main contenders into the weekend after a strong outing at the official pre-season test back in March.
Q1 Group B started with a scary moment, as newcomer Yusuke Tomibayashi (#5 Mach Syaken Air Buster MC86 Mach Go) crashed hard on his outlap into the concrete wall at the Atwood Corner. While the cause of the accident has yet to be revealed, it looked like the car understeered, perhaps due to a technical issue.
It certainly wasn’t the debut the former Gran Turismo World Champion and two-time Super Taikyu ST-3 Champion was hoping for. Thankfully, Tomibayashi could climb out of the car on his own. On social media, he revealed that he’s uninjured and that the team is hard at work repairing the car for tomorrow’s 300km race.
The session resumed with 7:30 left on the clock, meaning the teams had less team to get their tyres up to temperature. In the end, Kohta Kawaai (#52 Saitamatoyopet GreenBrave GR Supra GT) went fastest, only 0.008 ahead of Katsuyuki Hiranaka in the new #20 Shade Racing GR86 GT. Also breaking through Q1 were the #10 Gainer Tanax GT-R, #56 Realize Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R, the brand-new #4 Studie BMW M4, #4 Goodsmile Hatsune Miku AMG, #65 Leon Pyramid AMG and the #50 Arnage MC86. The latter beat Drago Corse’s new Busou raffinee GT-R by only 0.005 seconds.
Not starting in qualifying, unfortunately, was Tsuchiya Engineering’s original GTA GT300-spec Hoppy Schatz GR Supra, due to a problem with the drive system.
Q2 ended up being a record-shattering session as nine of the 16 participating cars beat the previous course record. Hiroki Yoshida tried to emulate his teammate’s Q1 performance by putting the green Toyota GR Supra on provisional pole, but he got quickly beaten by Shinichi Takagi in the K-tuns RC F GT3. For a moment it looked like GT300’s “Golden Combination” would take pole in their first qualifying since their reunion, but pole specialist Hideki Yamauchi had other plans as he updated the 2019 course record by 0.603 seconds with a stunning 1:24.286.
The pre-season of the blue boxer squad didn’t go very smoothly, so today’s result came as a bit of a surprise to them. “No way would I have thought that we could take pole position”, said Takuto Iguchi in the press conference afterwards. “After last season, we started testing in December, but there were a few situations where I couldn’t really drive the way I wanted to. I think the team’s efforts up to this point and the tyres chosen by Dunlop really suited today’s conditions. But in the end, it was Yamauchi-san’s great Q2 lap that led to today’s result.” Iguchi explained that he was really frustrated last year after he got eliminated in Q1, so passing the baton today must’ve felt like atonement.
Hideki Yamauchi’s ninth career pole position was also his fourth in the last nine races, further adding to his credentials as the fastest GT300 qualifier in SUPER GT. “As Iguchi-san said, we were struggling quite a bit and it was difficult to set times during practice due to various reasons. We have a new engineer with Satoshi Inoue this year, and I’m very happy that we were able to get this pole position as a result of our combined efforts.”
Starting second is the #96 K-tunes RC F GT3 of Morio Nitta and Shinichi Takagi. Rookie Riki Okusa missed out on taking the #10 TanaX Gainer GT-R to the front frow in his debut by a mere 0.050 seconds. And speaking of rookies: Kakunoshin Ota didn’t show any nerves in his first SUPER GT qualifying either, and put the Evo22 model of the #18 UPGarage NSX GT3 on a strong fourth place on the grid. This meant beating 2020 GT300 champion Joao Paulo de Oliveira (#56 Realize Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R) in fifth, as well as Naoki Yokomizo in the #9 PACIFIC hololive NAC Ferrari in sixth, who’s filling in for Takeshi Kimura this weekend and couldn’t quite match the pace of his teammate Kei Cozzolino in Q1.
In his first SUPER GT qualifying drive since the 2014 Suzuka 1000km, Augusto Farfus put his and Seiji Ara’s #7 Studie BMW M6 a strong seventh. Earlier today, Farfus completed the required rookie test, which he had to take after not driving in the series since 2016. The BMW works driver missed out on the pre-season tests due to Japan’s current entry regulations, but got his visa accepted just in time for the opening round.
The top ten was completed by Takashi Kogure (#88 Weibo Primez Lamborghini GT3), newcomer Eijiro Shimizu, making the #20 Shade Racing GR86 GT the fastest of the three new GT300-spec Toyota 86 GT machines, as well as Hiroki Yoshida (#52 Saitamatoyopet GreenBrave GR Supra GT), who wasn’t able to update his time after setting it early in the session.
The season opening Okayama GT 300km Race starts at 14:00 JST (local time), 5:00 GMT / 7:00 CEST / 01:00 EDT. The weather forecast predicts another sunny day, but with drastically increasing temperatures up to 21°C. A key element that could likely have an effect on some of the cars, especially in combination with the tyres.
Images © GTA
