Tuesday qualifying for the Autobacs SUPER GT Series FAV Hotel Fuji GT 450km Race saw the #19 WedsSport Advan Toyota GR Supra of Yuji Kunimoto and Sena Sakaguchi take GT500 pole position for the second year in a row in this event, with Sakaguchi taking his second career GT500 pole position, his first as a full-time GT500 driver at Toyota.
Conditions were perfect for the first day of SUPER GT’s annual Golden Week race meeting at Fuji Speedway: Sunny skies, ambient temperatures of 14°C, surface temperatures hovering around ~20°C throughout the afternoon qualifying session.
It was apparent in the morning practice that the Toyota GR Supras would be a hot pick to contend for pole position. Ritomo Miyata in the #37 KeePer TOM’s GR Supra recorded the fastest time in practice, and the two-time pole winner from 2021 backed up his strong pace in practice by setting the second-quickest time in Q1. It was the defending GT500 Drivers’ Champion, Sho Tsuboi, who went quickest in Q1, setting a time of 1’26.301.
Just seven tenths of a second covered positions one through eleven in Q1, and Kunimoto in the #19 WedsSport GR Supra held on to the final transfer spot to get into Q2, by just 0.041 seconds. Below the cut line, Okayama winners Kazuya Oshima and Kenta Yamashita will start ninth in the #14 Eneos X Prime GR Supra, which carries 42 kilogrammes of Success Ballast after their dominant win from pole.
Also missing the cut were two strong contenders out of the Nissan camp, the #12 Calsonic Impul Z (Kazuki Hiramine/Bertrand Baguette) in tenth, and the #23 Motul Autech Z (Tsugio Matsuda/Ronnie Quintarelli) in 11th. Last year’s winning car, the #17 Astemo Honda NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Nobuharu Matsushita), also missed the cut – and due to a post-qualifying penalty for Matsushita exceeding track limits, they’ve been dropped to 15th on the grid for Wednesday’s race.
Four Toyotas, two Nissans, and two Hondas advanced into Q2. After all the drivers got their tyres into the optimal temperature, the true speed was unleashed with just two minutes remaining in the ten-minute session.
On his first flying lap, Sakaguchi cleared the benchmark with a searing lap time of 1’26.149, displacing the #8 ARTA NSX-GT of Tomoki Nojiri from provisional pole. With his second flying lap, Sakaguchi put pole position just a bit further out of reach from the pack, confirming first place with a 1’26.137, less than half a second behind Yamashita’s lap record set here in last year’s season finale.
Sakaguchi won his first GT500 pole position last season at Okayama International Circuit, while filling in for Sacha Fenestraz at TGR Team KeePer TOM’s for the first five races of 2021. He took his second pole position in the same car that Miyata drove to pole position in last year’s Fuji 500km on Golden Week.
“This time I was able to take my first pole position as a regular driver, so I am very happy with this result,” said Sakaguchi. “Up until the start of Q2, Kunimoto-san was telling me about the fine points of the car’s condition. Believing what he said, I was able to run my time attacks with confidence, and I found that the condition of both the car and the tyres was so good, that I was able to run with a better feeling than I can remember in quite a while, so I feel great.”
“It is so enjoyable to come to this circuit with this team where everyone feels at home, and that made me feel free to give my opinions, so after that I was just wanting to get a good result. Because of all that, I feel so happy that the result was a pole position.”
TGR Team WedsSport Bandoh will have another chance to take their first GT500 win since the 2016 round at Chang International Circuit in Thailand, from the front row.
The front row will have both of Yokohama Rubber’s GT500 clients, as Kondo Racing’s #24 Realize Corporation Advan Z of Daiki Sasaki and Kohei Hirate qualified a strong second place. It’s the second all-Yokohama front row in GT500 in the last four races, dating back to Round 7 of the 2021 season at Motegi.
Just 0.003 seconds behind them, the Michelin-clad #3 CraftSports Motul Z of Katsumasa Chiyo and Mitsunori Takaboshi qualified third.
Observing the speed trap data from practice and qualifying, the new Nissan Fairlady Z GT500 has certainly delivered on the promise of building a car with better straight line speed. It gives Nissan supporters genuine hope that they can win at Fuji for the first time since 2018.
Three teams had their fastest lap times stripped due to track limits violations in Q2, which shook up the rest of the top eight finishers in qualifying.
The #8 ARTA NSX-GT of Nojiri and Nirei Fukuzumi initially qualified fourth, but Nojiri’s best lap from the very end of the session was deleted, demoting them to fifth behind the #37 KeePer TOM’s GR Supra of Miyata and Sacha Fenestraz.
Also, the #36 au TOM’s GR Supra of Tsuboi and Giuliano Alesi had its best lap deleted, dropping Alesi from sixth to eighth, behind the #38 ZENT Cerumo GR Supra (Yuji Tachikawa/Hiroaki Ishiura) and the #100 Stanley NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino). The #38 ZENT Cerumo GR Supra also had its fastest time deleted, but Tachikawa had a second best lap time good enough to stand in sixth and not lose any positions.
While Toyota and Nissan look like they have cars capable of winning at Fuji Speedway, there’s concerns about whether the Honda NSX-GT ‘Type S’ has the race pace to be a factor tomorrow. They may need to get creative with pit strategy tomorrow: There are two mandatory pit stops to be served during the race to refuel, but no mandate on changing tyres, and only one of those compulsory fuel stops requires a driver change.
The blue #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport of Takuto Iguchi and Hideki Yamauchi continued its dominance of the GT300 class in qualifying. The defending GT300 Champions will start on pole for the third consecutive race, dating back to last year’s season finale at Fuji.
A complete grid of 28 cars was split into two groups of 14 for Q1. Group A was led by the ageless Shinichi Takagi in the #96 K-Tunes Lexus RC F GT3, whose car was quickest in the speed traps during practice. It was a great rebound for Takagi, who turns 52 on Friday, after his race-ending collision with the GT500 class Kondo Racing Nissan in Okayama.
João Paulo de Oliveira also put in a strong effort to finish eighth in the #56 Realize Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R GT3, despite being laden with 60kg of Success Weight after winning the opener at Okayama. He held off Shintaro Kawabata in the #6 Team LeMans Audi R8 LMS by just 0.021 seconds for the final transfer spot.
In Q1 Group B, the #9 Pacific Hololive NAC Ferrari 488 GT3 of Kei Cozzolino rocketed to the best time, continuing the Italian-Japanese driver’s great form at Pacific-CarGuy Racing.
Group B almost produced a mighty upset when Yusuke Tomibayashi provisionally went fifth-quickest in the #5 Mach Syaken Air Buster MC86, but his best lap time was deleted for track limits, and he was moved outside the top eight. Also missing the cut in Q1 Group B, was the #18 UPGarage Honda NSX GT3 of Takashi Kobayashi and Kakunoshin Ota; the car that finished second in Okayama will start 17th, just ahead of the #6 Team LeMans R8 of Yoshiaki Katayama, the debuting Roberto Merhi Muntan, and the aforementioned third driver Kawabata.
Of the 16 cars that advanced to Q2, the #10 TanaX Gainer GT-R of Ryuichiro Tomita set a very strong early benchmark. With three minutes remaining, Tomita – the fastest driver in practice – set a 1’35.253 to take provisional pole.
However, Yamauchi in the #61 Subaru BRZ wouldn’t be denied a crack at pole position. With the fastest second and third sectors, the blue boxer leapt to the top spot with a time of 1’34.983, the first driver to crack the 1’35 threshold on the day. He backed that up with a best time of 1’34.888, less than half a second away from his own course record, to take pole position for the second time in 2022.
With his sixth pole in the last nine races, Yamauchi has already entered elite company as one of GT300’s best qualifiers: His tenth career pole position makes him just the fifth driver to reach double-digits, and ties him with Takayuki Aoki for fourth place all time.
More importantly, this is the Subaru/R&D Sport team’s seventh consecutive front row start dating back to 2021, and with just 9kg of Success Weight to work with, they could go on to win from pole if they avoid a misfortune like the one they suffered during the pit window at Okayama.
“This pole position is the result of everyone’s cooperation, because we were able to get to this point thanks not only to myself and Iguchi-san, and the team’s efforts – but also because of the support of so many people,” Yamauchi said. “This is our second pole position in a row this season, but since in the last round we weren’t able to get many series points, this time it is not only the pole position but tomorrow’s race that is so important. So I want to concentrate and do my best again tomorrow.”
The GT300 original vehicle will line up next to the fastest GT3 in the field, the #10 TanaX GT-R of Tomita, Riki Okusa, and Yusuke Shiotsu in second. This is the #10 Gainer crew’s best qualifying result since the 2018 Autopolis round.
Three drivers are enrolled in this car, but teams with three-driver lineups are not required to use all of them during the race. With Tomita driving in top form and Okusa coming off a strong debut in Okayama, it’ll be interesting to see if Shiotsu – who makes his SUPER GT debut this round – will get a stint at the wheel tomorrow.
The other half of K-Tunes’ “golden combination”, Morio Nitta, qualified the #96 Lexus a solid third position. Nitta and Takagi will share row two with another experienced driver pairing on Dunlop tyres: The #34 Busou raffinée GT-R of Masataka Yanagida and Yuji Ide looked sharp all day – Ide was second-quickest in Q1 Group A, and Yanagida reinforced the speed of their purple and red GT-R with a fourth-place effort in Q2.
The #65 LEON Pyramid Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Naoya Gamou/Takuro Shinohara) will start fifth, next to the second Gainer car, the #11 Gainer TanaX GT-R (Hironobu Yasuda/Keishi Ishikawa) in sixth. The LEON AMG was the fastest Bridgestone runner in qualifying, while Dunlop (Sumitomo) have four of their cars starting inside the top six.
With Hiroki Yoshida out of action due to a positive COVID-19 test, Togo Suganami stepped into the #52 Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave Toyota GR Supra and qualified third-fastest in Group B. His co-driver Kohta Kawaai would finish seventh in Q2, putting the Bridgestone-clad GR Supra on the fourth row alongside the #88 Weibo Primez Lamborghini Huracán GT3 (Takashi Kogure/Yuya Motojima) in eighth.
The #4 Goodsmile Hatsune Miku AMG (Nobuteru Taniguchi/Tatsuya Kataoka) was ninth, the #55 ARTA Honda NSX GT3 (Hideki Mutoh/Iori Kimura) was tenth, and the car that swept both races at Fuji Speedway in 2021, the #60 Syntium LMcorsa GR Supra (Hiroki Yoshimoto/Shunsuke Kohno), will start 11th alongside the #7 Studie BMW M4 GT3 (Seiji Ara/Augusto Farfus/Tsubasa Kondo) in 12th.
Kiyoto Fujinami qualified the #56 Realize GT-R GT3 in 14th position after Oliveira got them into Q2.
Pit strategy in GT300 will be very, very fascinating to observe in this race, especially given some teams’ tendencies to double stint a set of tyres during longer races such as this, or change just two tyres instead of four. In long-distance races, teams have also tried pitting at the end of the first lap to serve one of their compulsory fuel stops early, or to serve two stops on consecutive laps. Will we see such developments on Wednesday?
The 100-lap, Fuji GT 450km Race begins Wednesday at 14:30 JST (local time) / 5:30 UTC.
Images © GTA
