The #23 Motul Autech Nissan Z of Tsugio Matsuda and Ronnie Quintarelli proved to be in a class of its own during a rainy qualifying session at Okayama International Circuit. Two-time GT500 Champion and all-time GT500 win leader Matsuda went on to secure pole position for tomorrow’s SUPER GT Okayama GT 300km Race – and did so in dominant style.
Rain showers persisted throughout Qualifying Day on Saturday, where standing water in certain sections of the 3.7-kilometre circuit caught drivers out during the morning Practice session. None had a worse encounter with this phenomenon than TGR Team SARD driver Yuichi Nakayama, who was driving the #39 Denso Kobelco SARD Toyota GR Supra through the Moss S-curves when he lost control between turns two and three, skidded off course and slammed into the sponge barriers. The white and red Denso Supra barrel rolled multiple times, resting on its side.
Thankfully, Nakayama was able to walk away uninjured. But the Denso Supra, which had just set the fastest time in Practice in the hands of 2021 GT500 Champion Yuhi Sekiguchi, could not be repaired in time to participate in Qualifying.
To help mitigate the wet conditions and the subsequent difficulty that teams experienced getting heat into their tyres, every segment of Qualifying was extended from 10 to 15 minutes. GT500 Q1 had to be delayed when conditions worsened during the preceding GT300 Q1 groups.
So, 14 cars would battle for the top eight positions and with it the chance to fight for pole position. The two NISMO-operated Nissan Zs were a factor early, both equipped with Michelin’s asymmetric pattern wet-weather tyres. Quintarelli in the #23 Motul Z, and Katsumasa Chiyo in the #3 Niterra Motul Z for NDDP Racing, traded top times and got close to breaking the 90-second barrier. Eventually, Tadasuke Makino in the Bridgestone-clad #100 Stanley Honda NSX-GT broke through and set provisional pole with a 1’29.940, then improved to a 1’29.812.
But as the chequered flag dropped, Quintarelli set an even faster time of 1’29.659, ahead of Makino, and the Dunlop-shod #64 Modulo NSX-GT of Takuya Izawa in third.
Six cars were bumped, including the #1 Marelli Impul Z of defending GT500 Champions Kazuki Hiramine and Bertrand Baguette. Hiramine gave it his all in Q1 but a time of 1’30.842 would only be good enough for 12th place. The #16 ARTA Mugen NSX-GT (Nirei Fukuzumi/Hiroki Otsu) and the #36 au TOM’s GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi/Ritomo Miyata) also missed the cut, while a mistake from Nobuharu Matsushita on his last lap left the #17 Astemo NSX-GT down in 13th.
When it came time for Q2, the two Michelin-clad Nissan Z-cars set an early standard once again, with Matsuda in the #23 Motul Z and Mitsunori Takaboshi in the #3 Niterra Z.
Matsuda and Takaboshi gradually dipped down into the sub-90 second range, but with less than four minutes left, Matsuda was the first driver to dip into the sub-1m29s range and set a blistering time of 1’28.226 – nearly eight-tenths quicker than the second-best time from Takaboshi.
But even when he already had pole position secured, the 44-year-old legend Matsuda continued to find more and more pace as the conditions improved. On his next flying lap, he gained two-tenths and pushed his benchmark up to 1’28.071. And on his last lap, Matsuda broke the sub-1m28s barrier and reeled off a 1’27.860, when no other competitor had anything close to a sufficient answer for his astonishing pace in the driving rain. Matsuda had won the pole by over 1.1 seconds!
Perhaps as impressive as Matsuda’s wet-weather master class was in a vacuum, it becomes more astonishing in its statistical context. The 23-time GT500 race winner had just won his first pole position since the June 2010 race at Sepang Circuit – and only the second of his 23-year GT500 career!
“I think the last time I won a pole position was back in 2010, wasn’t it?” asked an astonished Matsuda in his post-qualifying remarks. “I am certainly happy to get this one today.”
It isn’t the usual plan for the NISMO team to have Matsuda go for pole position. Q2 driving duties are normally assigned to Quintarelli, a 15-time pole winner who sits second on the all-time list. “Usually Ronnie would always run in Q2, but since I hadn’t run in the rain in the official practice, I was given the assignment of running in the better conditions of Q2 this time. I took the advice of Ronnie about warming up the tyres and did it gradually. But I was able to do well working at my own pace.”
“I thought that my biggest rival would be car No. 3 that was also running on Michelin tyres, but the other teams also had good (rain) tyres. Still, I was able to take advantage of the Michelin tyre performance. Since the team has set up the car so well, I will do my best to keep the top position and win tomorrow’s race.”
While the margin to Matsuda was demoralizing, Chiyo and Takaboshi were still able to put the #3 Niterra Motul Z into second on the grid, making it an all-Nissan, all-Michelin front row in GT500. NDDP Racing finished second in the GT500 Championships last season and won two races including a wet race at Sportsland Sugo.
“It’s very frustrating to have lost out to the No. 23 car, which was using the same tyres,” said Takaboshi. “However, we were trying out a new set-up, which we hadn’t been able to test fully due to the conditions. This time we were able to confirm what kind of potential the new set-up had, and we were also able to confirm that it was still lacking against car 23, so I think that was good. Now it’s just a question of how we’re going to change that as we go through the season, as well as tomorrow’s race.”
Rookie Kakunoshin Ohta, in his first GT500 qualifying run, did a splendid job to qualify third in the #64 Modulo NSX-GT. While much has been made of Michelin’s radical wet tyre design, Nakajima Racing and their tyre partners at Dunlop have often excelled in wet conditions.
Dunlop has introduced a new wet tyre compound that seems to meet that previous standard – now it remains to be seen if Ohta and Izawa can convert their qualifying results into a good race tomorrow, where the risk of rain is lessened.
The #14 Eneos X Prime Toyota GR Supra (Kazuya Oshima/Kenta Yamashita) will start fourth, as the highest-ranked Bridgestone team in Qualifying. Oshima and Yamashita will be going for their third straight Okayama opening-round victory for TGR Team ENEOS Rookie. Behind them, the #19 WedsSport Advan GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi) was fifth-fastest, and the #37 Deloitte TOM’s GR Supra (Ukyo Sasahara/Giuliano Alesi) was sixth.
Two Bridgestone-clad Hondas advanced to Q2 but neither the #8 ARTA Mugen NSX-GT (Tomoki Nojiri/Toshiki Oyu) nor the #100 Stanley NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino) were able to pull themselves higher than seventh and eighth, respectively.
Also, before Qualifying, it was confirmed that the #8 ARTA NSX of Nojiri and Oyu must serve a five-second penalty stop during the race on Sunday for an unapproved chassis change. ARTA and Mugen are effectively sacrificing results in the opening round for future success with a fresh monocoque.
Meanwhile, the #1 Marelli Impul Z of defending GT500 Champions Kazuki Hiramine and Bertrand Baguette missed out on a place in Q2 and will start 12th. Absent from proceedings was the #39 Denso Kobelco SARD GR Supra (Yuhi Sekiguchi/Yuichi Nakayama) – Sekiguchi was the fastest man in the morning Practice session, but Nakayama aquaplaned off course in the Moss S-curves, slammed into the sponge barriers and rolled over twice. The damage prevented TGR Team SARD from taking part in qualifying.
In GT300, it was the #65 LEON Pyramid Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Naoya Gamou and Takuro Shinohara that wrapped up pole position with a perfect qualifying run from both drivers in the wet conditions.
With the field of 27 GT300 cars split into two groups, Group A actually had its session red-flagged after nine and a half minutes of running – due to rainfall and poor visibility. Out of this group, the #20 SHADE Racing Toyota GR86 of Katsuyuki Hiranaka was the quickest – but co-driver Eijiro Shimizu couldn’t get a clean lap together in Q2, and the #20 Toyota GR86 will start 15th.
Shinohara was the leader of Group B, as Bridgestone-clad teams finished first, second, and third with the #52 Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave Toyota GR Supra of Kohta Kawaai, and the #2 muta Racing GR86 of Hibiki Taira rounding out the running order.
Surprise eliminations from the Q1 stage included the #10 Ponos Gainer Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 (Hironobu Yasuda/Riki Okusa) in 17th, the #18 UPGarage Honda NSX GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi/Syun Koide) in 18th, and the #6 Dobot Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II (Yoshiaki Katayama/Roberto Merhi) in 20th. The #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi) was another surprise to miss Q2, ending up 22nd on the grid.
Throughout Q2, it became apparent that the 2018 Champion Gamou and his black Mercedes were going to be unbeatable as the conditions improved slightly. Gamou’s first hot lap of 1’37.689 was already the fastest of the day, but then he improved even further on that milestone with a 1’36.244, and then, at the chequered flag, a 1’36.038 just to drive the point home!
“The track had less water on it (in Q2), which made the running conditions considerably better,” said Gamou, “and we were able to make a [good] tyre choice accordingly. Still, we owe this pole position to the work of the whole team. I really want to thank them all. I think this has given us another good start for the new season this year. I will do my best again in tomorrow’s race.”
K2 R&D LEON Racing will be aiming for their first SUPER GT race win since 2020 from the front row, which they’ll share with the #2 muta GR86, which qualified second after a spirited effort from Yuui Tsutsumi to secure an all-Bridgestone front row.
Good things were expected out of the #7 Studie BMW M4 GT3 (Seiji Ara/Bruno Spengler), which has similar Michelin tyres to the two Nissans which dominated GT500.
Ara advanced out of his group, and the 2012 DTM Champion Spengler, in his first SUPER GT qualifying run, went third-fastest.
The #88 JLOC Lamborghini Huracán GT3 (Takashi Kogure/Yuya Motojima) backed up its good testing form in the dry with a fourth-place effort in the rain, followed by the #4 Goodsmile Hatsune Miku AMG (Nobuteru Taniguchi/Tatsuya Kataoka) in fifth.
The new #31 apr Lexus LC500h GT300 (Koki Saga/Kazuto Kotaka) debuted with an astonishing sixth place on the grid. One of the better performances in GT300 Qualifying came from the #50 Anest Iwata Racing Lexus RC F GT3 (Igor Fraga/Yuga Furutani) – not only did they advance out of their group, but Fraga, in his first real-world sports car race at this level, was seventh-fastest ahead of some very renowned luminaries.
In eighth place was the two-time and defending Okayama race winners, and the defending GT300 Champions, the #56 Realize/Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R (João Paulo de Oliveira/Teppei Natori). A strong ninth-place effort was had by the #27 Yogibo Racing NSX GT3 (Yugo Iwasawa/Reimei Ito). The #52 GreenBrave Supra of Kawaai and Hiroki Yoshida rounded out the top ten of the GT300 grid.
Images © GTA
