The first live, flag-to-flag, English language broadcast of the Eneos Super Taikyu Series powered by Hankook begins Sunday at twitch.tv/motorsportjapan!
RJ O’Connell, Hana Burton, and Christian “JPMotorsportChris” will commentate the five-hour race from Suzuka Circuit. Coverage begins 15 minutes before the green flag, at 1:30 AM GMT / 2:30 AM CET / 12:30 PM AEDT / 2:30 PM NZDT / Saturday, 8:30 PM EST / 5:30 PST.
Ahead of a winner-take-all showdown for the premier ST-X class championship, the #62 HELM Motorsports Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 of Yutaka Toriba, Yuya Hiraki, and Reiji Hiraki won the pole position for Sunday’s Super Taikyu final round at Suzuka.
The Ibaraki-based team gained two points in the championship for winning the pole in the ST-X class, and have now closed to within half a point of championship leaders Grid Motorsport, whose #888 Mercedes-AMG GT3 qualified fifth overall and in class. Whichever team finishes ahead of the other in the five-hour season finale will almost certainly win the championship.
In the first leg of qualifying, it was Toriba, the newly-crowned Japanese F4 Independent Cup champion, who set a best time of 2’03.161. That put him three-tenths ahead of the other Gentleman drivers in the ST-X field, giving his team mates a good foundation to start their run for pole position.
In the second leg of qualifying, Kazuto Kotaka went quickest in his #31 apr Denso Lexus RC F GT3, recording a 2’01.179. But Yuya Hiraki, the older of the brothers, was just 0.013 seconds behind him in the blue and orange #62 HELM GT-R GT3. That was more than enough to give HELM Motorsports their first pole position in the ST-X class, and the two precious bonus points that came with it. This is despite carrying 60 kilogrammes of success ballast on board for the weekend.
It also snapped a streak of four consecutive pole positions for the #16 Porsche Centre Okazaki 911 GT3-R (Hiroaki Nagai/Yuta Kamimura/Daisuke Ito), which qualified in second place. In fact, this was the first time all season that the bright red Porsche did not win the pole in a race that it entered. The combined times of Nagai and Kamimura were 1.1 seconds back of Toriba and Hiraki.
Qualifying third was the #777 D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 (Satoshi Hoshino/Tomonobu Fujii/Tsubasa Kondo), followed by the #31 Lexus of Hideki Nagai, Kotaka, and Koki Saga in fourth. With lighter success ballast loads of 30kg and 20kg, respectively, both teams could have a fighting chance at victory in the race.
Martin Berry and Shaun Thong on the other hand, had a more challenging time with the +80kg of success weight aboard the #888 Grid Motorsport Mercedes. With co-drivers Shinichi Takagi and Daisuke Yamawaki, the yellow and black Mercedes will line up fifth on the grid, ahead of the #23 TKRI Mercedes (Daisuke Matsunaga/Yuya Motojima/Yuhki Nakayama) in sixth, and the #81 Daishin/GTNET GT-R GT3 (Noboyuki Oyagi/Takayuki Aoki/Kiyoto Fujinami/Natsu Sakaguchi) in seventh.
The #81 Daishin GT-R, which won the opening round of the championship at Suzuka, still has an outside chance at the championship – but would need to win the race and have both the #888 Grid Mercedes and #62 HELM GT-R finish sixth or lower in their class.
Qualifying eighth overall, and fastest in the ST-1 class, was the #2 Syntium Apple KTM X-Bow GTX of Taiyo Ida, Hiroki Katoh, Kazuho Takahashi, and Hiroki Yoshimoto.
Ida and Katoh’s pole run gives K’s Frontier KTM Cars two precious points in their own close battle for the ST-1 class title. They now stand five and a half points clear of the #47 D’station Vantage GT8R (Kenji Hama/Manabu Orido/Jake Parsons), which qualified tenth overall and third in their class.
A class win for either team will be enough to clinch the title, but now the #47 D’station Racing can only control their championship destiny with a race win – otherwise, they would need the #2 KTM to retire from the race.
The #38 muta Racing Toyota GR Supra (Yuui Tsutsumi/Yuichi Nakayama/Kota Matsui) qualified ninth overall and second in their class, but like GTNET Motor Sports in ST-X, they are the distant longshots in what is largely a two-car battle. They would need to win their class and have both the #2 KTM and #47 Aston Martin retire from the race to win the championship.
In 11th overall is the ST-Q class #3 Endless Sports Mercedes-AMG GT4 (Ryo Ogawa/Shintaro Kawabata/Togo Suganami/Riki Tanioka), while its closest ST-Q counterpart, the #244 Max Racing Nissan Z Racing Concept (Toru Tanaka/Atsushi Miyake/Tetsuya Tanaka), qualified in 17th in what should be the last race for the upcoming Nissan Z GT4’s prototype.
The ST-Z class title has already been decided, and new champions Team 5Zigen have elected to put their Mercedes-AMG GT4 on sale rather than run in this last race. In Free Practice on Saturday morning, the GT4 class lost another contender when the #34 Techno First Ginetta G55 GT4 suffered a brake failure approaching the Hairpin Corner. Kazuki Oki crashed into the sponge barriers head-on. The 20-year-old driver was able to walk away unhurt. But Techno First Racing Team have withdrawn their #34 Ginetta, leaving just six entries in the class for the race.
The attrition continued off the track when Porsche Team EBI Waimarama driver Katsumasa Chiyo had to withdraw from the race after a close COVID-19 contact, and their gentleman driver, ‘Kizuna’, was also withdrawn before the start of the weekend.
The good news for the team was that they will race this weekend with just two drivers, Naoya Yamano and Riki Okusa. And in fact, Yamano and Okusa delivered the team’s first ST-Z pole position by qualifying 12th overall. The bad news, is that because they don’t have a Gentleman driver in their lineup (Yamano and Okusa are both Expert rated drivers), the team will have to serve a 60-second penalty stop after the start of the race.
But they will start ahead of the #310 Hirix/Eiko Toyota GR Supra GT4 of Manabu Yamazaki, Sho Tsuboi, and Seita Nonaka (13th overall, second in class), a team that still has a chance for second in the championship. They’re seven points behind the #885 SHADE Racing GR Supra of Hiro Hayashi, Katsuyuki Hiranaka, and Eijiro Shimizu, who qualified third in class (14th overall). SHADE Racing, who won the season-opener at Suzuka, still have the advantage and can clinch second in the championship by finishing on the podium in their class.
The #97 Racer/HFDP Honda Civic TCR (Mitsuhiro Endo/Shinji Nakano/Yusuke Mitsui) won the two-car battle for ST-TCR pole position, qualifying 20th overall.
In ST-2, the two Shinryo Racing Team Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution Xes qualified 1-2, led by the #7 car (Yoshiki Fujii/Mamoru Okada/Kensuke Anzai/Masato Narisawa) ahead of the #6 (Tomohiro Tomimasu/Yasushi Kikuchi/Masazumi Ohashi). The #225 Kobe Toyopet Motorsports Toyota GR Yaris (Hibiki Taira/Rin Arakawa/Jiei Okuzumi) qualified third in its class, and can clinch the ST-2 title by finishing fifth or better in its class.
Also in the ST-2 class, the new #743 Honda R&D Challenge Civic Type R looked competitive against its rivals. Hiroaki Ishigaki even set the fastest time in the class during the first leg of qualifying. After HRD engineer Junichi Kidachi’s run, the car qualified fourth in class and 31st overall on its debut, with lead designer Hideki Kakinuma and recently-retired SUPER GT driver Hideki Mutoh rounding out what could be a very competitive lineup for the race.
Qualifying 16th overall and winning the pole in the ST-3 class for the second straight race is the #63 Tracy Sports Lexus RC 350 of Ryohei Sakaguchi, Rintaro Kubo, and Dai Mizuno. They’ll line up first in the Group 2 grid ahead of the other cars in ST-3, ST-4, ST-5, along with four of the six ST-Q runners.
Sakaguchi and Kubo were 1.2 seconds ahead of the #52 Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave Toyota Crown RS (Naoki Hattori/Hiroki Yoshida/Kohta Kawaai), which qualified second in its class, and 21st overall, in what will be the final race for the ARS220 model Crown.
Simply finishing the race will be enough for Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave to clinch the ST-3 championship, ahead of the #39 Tracy Sports with Delta RC350 (Yusuke Tomibayashi/Takashi Itoh/Hirotaka Ishii), which qualified third in class (22nd overall).
The #86 TOM’s Spirit Toyota GR86 (Shunsuke Kohno/Takamitsu Matsui/Kenta Yamashita) won the pole in ST-4, and they too can clinch the series title simply by finishing the race on Sunday – while the #884 SHADE Racing GR86 (Yuji Kunimoto/Keishi Ishikawa/Shinnosuke Yamada), which qualified second in class, needs a win and a retirement from the #86 TOM’s Spirit crew to overturn a large deficit.
And in ST-5, there are still six teams still mathematically eligible to win the championship in what could truly become the highlight of the race. Qualifying produced an upset as the #65 odula Tone/HERO’s Mazda Roadster of Shuichiro Hokazono, Shunji Okumoto, Hirohito Ito, and Eiji Niwa won the pole position in its class.
The #88 Murakami Motors Roadster (Hiroyuki Murakami/Tatsuya Ota/Naoki Yamaya/Keiji Amemiya) qualified second, fastest of the six title contending crews, ahead of the #66 Over Drive Roadster (Takayuki Takechi/Kousei Kanto/Kyosuke Inomata/Daichi Okamoto), last year’s championship-winning team.
The fastest front-wheel drive ST-5 car in qualifying was the #104 HMRacers Mazda2 (Soichiro Yoshida/Kota Sasaki/Tomomitsu Seno/Ryunosuke Yoshida) in fourth, followed by the #4 Team Bride Honda Fit RS (Yuya Ohta/Hiroshi Ito/Hiroki Kokuzawa/Rina Ito) in fifth, and the diesel-powered #17 DXL Aragosta/NOPRO Mazda Demio (Kazunari Yoshioka/Tobio Ohtani/Yuya Tezuka/Toshihiko Nogami) in seventh.
ST-5 championship leaders, the #72 Öhlins/NATS Roadster (Tetsuya Yamano/Makoto Kanai/Toshiya Nojima), could only qualify ninth-fastest in class with a +60kg success ballast penalty.
If the race finishes with the above teams finishing where they started, Team Bride’s front-wheel drive Honda Fit, which currently sits second in the table behind the rear-wheel drive Roadster from Nihon Automobile College, would win the championship by just half a point!
In ST-Q, the #28 ORC ROOKIE Racing Toyota GR86 CNF Concept won bragging rights over its sister car, the #61 Team SDA Engineering Subaru BRZ CNF Concept. The #28 Toyota of Naoya Gamou, Daisuke Toyoda, Kazuya Oshima, and Ryuta Ukai qualified 29th ahead of the #61 Subaru of Takuto Iguchi, Hideki Yamauchi, and Koichi Hirota, in 30th. The aggregate times of Gamou/Toyoda and Iguchi/Yamauchi were separated by just 0.193 seconds!
The hydrogen-powered #32 ROOKIE Racing Toyota GR Corolla H2 Concept (Masahiro Sasaki/Akio “Morizo” Toyoda/Hiroaki Ishiura/Yasuhiro Ogura) qualified 38th overall, between the ST-4 and ST-5 classes on pace.
Mechanical issues prevented the new #55 Mazda Spirit Racing Mazda3 Bio Concept from setting a time in the first and second legs of qualifying, which means they’ll have to start from the back of the Group 2 grid on Sunday.
The car was eventually able to get out on track for the C and D driver qualifying segments, which do not impact the grid. But they did reveal that the 2.2 litre, inline-four turbo diesel Mazda, running on Euglena Susteo renewable biodiesel fuel, was able to approach the ST-4 class on pace. Kazuhiro Terakawa, Kaoru Ijiri, Yutaka Seki, and Mazda Senior Fellow Brand Design lead Ikuo Maeda will be aiming to finish in the new Mazda3’s debut race.
Images © Suzuka Circuit / Honda Mobilityland
