Multiple red flags for rain, lightning, high winds, and other calamities brought the 2023 Autobacs SUPER GT Series’ opening round at Okayama International Speedway to an end after just 62 out of the scheduled 82 laps.
Emerging from the chaos of one of SUPER GT’s most turbulent races of recent memory, the #23 Motul Autech Nissan Z of Tsugio Matsuda and Ronnie Quintarelli won the Okayama GT 300km Race from pole position, giving the flagship NISMO team its first win since 2021. But that sentence alone might have been one of the rare moments where everything went according to the formbook.
On Sunday morning, the weather conditions were excellent. Bright, sunny skies greeted the fans as they filed into Okayama International Circuit for the pre-race festivities and support events. When all 42 cars lined up on the grid and departed for the formation laps, there were clouds rolling in overhead, sure. But few could have predicted how the conditions would change throughout the day!
Quintarelli led the GT500 field to the green flag, followed by Katsumasa Chiyo in the #3 Niterra Motul Z in second. While the #64 Modulo Honda NSX-GT qualified third thanks to the strength of its Dunlop wet-weather tyres, in the dry, Takuya Izawa had no chance to keep the likes of Yuji Kunimoto in the #19 WedsSport Advan Toyota GR Supra, and Tadasuke Makino in the #100 Stanley NSX-GT behind him.
Makino went on an early charge – he gained four places on the opening lap and then overtook Kunimoto for third place. The two leading Michelin-clad Nissans and the Bridgestone-clad Honda made a three-car breakaway for the lead. But as they did, those clouds that had loomed in the distance arrived and brought the rain with them: Slight at first, but gradually increasing in its intensity!
Quintarelli brought the Motul Z down into pit lane as several GT500 teams switched to wet tyres. Chiyo and Makino cycled to first and second and battled one another up front. Behind them, Yoshiaki Katayama in the GT300 class #6 Dobot Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II spun off into the gravel at turn one. This triggered the first Full Course Yellow (FCY) of the race, and it would have been easy enough to deal with on its own.
But then, the right-rear wheel of Keishi Ishikawa’s #11 Gainer TanaX Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 came loose along the backstretch, and Takayuki Aoki’s #360 RunUp Rivaux GT-R was sent out of pit lane with its right-front wheel detached. These incidents upgraded the FCY into the first Safety Car of the season. All the while, the rain fell even harder – and the grey skies even yielded pebble-sized hailstones!
Chiyo thought about bringing the #3 Niterra Z in for its pit stop, but then the FCY board was displayed and pit lane was closed. But Makino in the #100 Stanley NSX and Ukyo Sasahara in the #37 Deloitte TOM’s GR Supra came in too late. While they were able to complete their tyre changes, and restarted up front on lap 23, both cars would have to serve separate 60-second penalty stops for entering a closed pit lane. Chiyo would eventually pit on lap 19 after Race Director Naoki Hattori opened pit lane again under the control of the Safety Car.
But Sho Tsuboi wasn’t waiting for a stewards’ investigation on the two leaders. He came in with the leading Motul Z on lap 15 and drove his #36 au TOM’s GR Supra past a sluggish-starting Quintarelli on the restart lap. By lap 27, Tsuboi was past Sasahara, and on lap 28, Tsuboi drove right around the outside of Makino at the Hairpin Curve and into the lead, well before Makino and Sasahara had to serve their respective penalty stops.
By this time, the sun had burst through the previously grey skies. The track was still wet, but drying rapidly. Tsuboi had stretched his race lead out to over three seconds, but once the Michelin tyres of the Motul Z were finally up in their optimum state, Quintarelli found his way back into second place and began cutting away into Tsuboi’s lead.
All it took was Tsuboi catching GT300 traffic out of the final corner for Quintarelli to pounce – while the Toyota was ahead by the length of its bonnet as lap 41 began, the Nissan was able to slip past around the outside with ease – putting Quintarelli back into the race lead!
With half of the scheduled distance complete, teams had to think about changing back to slick tyres and also changing drivers. On lap 45, Tsuboi brought the #36 au Supra in for its pit stop, and Ritomo Miyata took over for the final stint. The Motul Z came in on the following lap with Quintarelli handing off the controls to Matsuda. TOM’s hoped to use the undercut to their advantage but the NISMO mechanics gave the team a perfect pit stop that allowed Matsuda to come out well ahead of Miyata.
A second FCY was declared on lap 48 when the #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport of Hideki Yamauchi slid off the course at the Hairpin Corner. While Yamauchi’s Subaru was being towed away by the tractor, Kohei Hirate lost control of his #24 Realize Corporation Advan Z at the same corner, and the two-time GT500 champion was also stuck in the gravel! The rain had started to come back!
When both Yamauchi and Hirate’s cars were fetched out of the gravel, Race Control lifted the FCY on lap 51 with Matsuda and Miyata along the East Straightaway, running first and second. Mere seconds later, Takashi Kogure in the #88 JLOC Lamborghini Huracán GT3 and Liang Jiatong in the #9 Pacific VSPO NAC Mercedes-AMG GT3 collided in the run to Attwood Curve – and the Safety Car was deployed once again.
Critically, the leading Motul Z of Matsuda had entered the pits before the Safety Car board was displayed, which allowed the NISMO crew to change back over to wet tyres first as the rain intensified.
On lap 55, the race was red-flagged for 20 minutes due to lightning strikes in the vicinity of the circuit. All but one GT500 car was still on slick tyres when the rain was getting heavier and the standing water began to accumulate in portions of the circuit. That was only one of the worries for the crew of the #16 ARTA Mugen NSX-GT, which hadn’t changed drivers before the race was suspended under the Safety Car – meaning Nirei Fukuzumi was about to go over his maximum two-thirds distance! Thankfully, the timing of the red flag allowed them to change drivers without a penalty once they got approval from the officials.
Once the red flag was lifted and the race resumed under the control of the Safety Car, pit lane opened for teams to change over to wet tyres. The Motul Z would cycle to the lead in this exchange while teams scrambled to change tyres and get out with good track position.
In their haste, a miscommunication between mechanics of TGR Team au TOM’s doomed the #36 Toyota to a crushing retirement – they’d dropped the car off its air jacks before the left-front tyre could be secured! Miyata got out of the pits ahead of the others who’d pitted, but it was only a matter of time before he’d pulled over with a loose wheel.
The rain persisted and the winds were beginning to get stronger and stronger. The Safety Car was going to come in at the end of lap 60, but then, the #2 muta Racing Toyota GR86 of Hibiki Taira lost its left-rear wheel. Instead of restarting the race, Race Control thought better and brought out the second red flag of the race, with just half an hour remaining until the curfew time of 4:30 PM. The leading Motul Z had completed 60 laps, just short of the threshold of 75 percent distance needed to award full championship points.
Any chance for a competitive green-flag finish was out the window due to the weather, so with ten minutes until the curfew time, the field would run two more laps behind the Safety Car in order to cross the 75% mark and award full points, before red-flagging the race again.
That sealed the victory for Matsuda and Quintarelli in the #23 Motul Z. For Matsuda, it was his 24th career win, extending his record for the most GT500 class wins in SUPER GT history. And for Quintarelli, his 18th career win puts him one away from second-placed Yuji Tachikawa on the all-time list.
Behind them, the #3 Niterra Z of Chiyo and Mitsunori Takaboshi finished second. As NDDP Racing’s car is operated by NISMO, one could consider it a 1-2 finish for the factory team!
NDDP Racing took a different path to second place: Chiyo and NDDP Racing waited until after pit lane opened during the first Safety Car period to change tyres. This dropped them to the rear of the field on the restart, but by lap 41, they were back up to third place. Takaboshi took over after lap 44, and after the au Supra’s pit stop disaster, he drove the Niterra Z through into second place!
For the third-placed #8 ARTA Mugen NSX-GT (Tomoki Nojiri/Toshiki Oyu), a podium finish was far from what they’d expected at the start of the day! Oyu started the race knowing that he’d have to serve a five-second penalty stop for an unapproved chassis change after testing – a change that ARTA and Mugen made when their previous chassis suffered from veering.
But they timed their first pit stop perfectly, and after the restart, Oyu tamed the wet track and picked his way through the field to go from 11th to fourth place by the time he pitted on lap 41.
Nojiri would inherit third place after the TOM’s pit miscue, and after intending to sacrifice an early result for long-term benefit, he and Oyu left the weekend with third place and 11 points to their names!
Best of the Toyotas was the #14 Eneos X Prime GR Supra (Kazuya Oshima/Kenta Yamashita), which had won this event for the last two years – but could only manage a fourth-place finish in their three-peat attempt.
On the road, the #16 ARTA Mugen NSX-GT of Fukuzumi and Hiroki Otsu was able to complete its driver change and was originally classified fifth despite the scare. But after the race, they were given a 100-second time penalty which dropped them to 11th.
While they were allowed to change drivers and tyres before the race restarted under the Safety Car, they needed to stop at the red flag line in pit lane before proceeding to their box no sooner than five minutes before the declared restart time. They also would have needed to wait until the red flag was lifted completely and the Safety Car resumed the race before doing any pit work.
As a consequence, the #38 ZENT Cerumo GR Supra (Yuji Tachikawa/Hiroaki Ishiura) was promoted to fifth place. And the defending GT500 champions, the #1 Marelli Impul Z (Kazuki Hiramine/Bertrand Baguette), finished in sixth. Baguette had the overtake sequence of the race, sweeping past Chiyo and Yuhi Sekiguchi around the outside of Attwood Curve, and then Nobuharu Matsushita at the Hairpin, to gain three positions in a span of two corners!
Matsushita and Koudai Tsukakoshi were seventh in the #17 Astemo NSX-GT, while Sekiguchi and Yuichi Nakayama finished eighth in the #39 Denso Kobelco SARD GR Supra. The Denso Supra was repaired overnight after a practice crash on Saturday morning, and mechanics from GT300 team LM corsa even assisted in the repair efforts.
The #19 WedsSport Advan GR Supra of Kunimoto and Sena Sakaguchi finished ninth, while the #64 Modulo NSX-GT of Izawa and Kakunoshin Ohta completed the top ten. Both the #100 Stanley NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino) and #37 Deloitte TOM’s GR Supra (Ukyo Sasahara/Giuliano Alesi) finished outside the points, 12th and 13th after their respective penalty stops.
GT300 produced a surprise winner through it all: Perfect pit stop timing gave the #18 UPGarage Honda NSX GT3 of Takashi Kobayashi and Syun Koide to take victory from 18th on the grid – the first win for Team UPGarage in five years!
Takuro Shinohara led the GT300 field to the green flag aboard the pole-winning #65 LEON Pyramid Mercedes-AMG GT3, followed by Yuui Tsutsumi in the #2 muta Racing Toyota GR86. Behind the two leading Bridgestone-equipped cars, newcomer Bruno Spengler slotted into third in the Michelin-clad #7 Studie BMW M4 GT3.
The first FCY/Safety Car intervention that kicked off with Katayama’s spin into the gravel at turn one, resulted in several teams pitting for wet tyres once pit lane re-opened. Shinohara retained the lead, but behind him, Kohta Kawaai in the #52 Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave GR Supra had jumped all the way up into second place. And by changing tyres before the FCY, Ryohei Sakaguchi in the #9 Pacific VSPO NAC AMG had jumped all the way up to third place, ahead of Tsutsumi. Also, Koide moved into the top ten for the first time.
On the restart, Shinohara bolted back out to a big lead while Tsutsumi got back ahead of Sakaguchi to make it a Bridgestone 1-2-3 at the front of the GT500 field. But as the conditions improved, the #9 Pacific AMG began to pick up speed and Sakaguchi fought back, past Tsutsumi and Kawaai to take second place – while Shinohara had extended his lead out to over 15 seconds.
On lap 39, Shinohara brought the LEON AMG into the pits for its second stop. Naoya Gamou took over on a fresh set of Bridgestone slick tyres. Two laps later, the #52 GreenBrave GR Supra and #2 muta GR86 pitted for slick tyres and driver changes – Kawaai to Hiroki Yoshida, and Tsutsumi to Hibiki Taira.
But from fourth place, the #18 UPGarage NSX leapt in front of all of them by pitting earliest on lap 37, a strategy that would eventually net them the victory when the race succumbed to multiple red flags and incidents.
It was a milestone victory for the team and its drivers. Team UPGarage took their first and only win at this event in 2018, back when they were still racing with the Toyota 86 Mother Chassis by Dome – so this was Team UPGarage’s first win with the Honda NSX GT3. That 2018 race at Okayama was also the most recent victory for Kobayashi until this weekend when he claimed his seventh GT300 class win in his 100th SUPER GT start (including championship and non-championship rounds).
And as for Koide, the reigning FIA F4 Japanese Champion, he became the latest in an exclusive club of drivers to win in their first-ever start in the SUPER GT Series. The last rookie driver to win their debut race was Kohta Kawaai in the 2020 season-opening race at Fuji Speedway.
After leading most of the race from the start, the #65 LEON Pyramid AMG of Gamou and Shinohara was resigned to a second-place finish, the best result for K2 R&D LEON Racing since 2021.
But the biggest shock came out of the final scramble for wet tyre pit stops. With the closest pit stall to pit entry, the #244 Hachi-Ichi GR Supra (Kimiya Sato/Atsushi Miyake) was able to make a perfect and undisturbed pit stop which let them jump from 11th to third place once the race was suspended!
That bit of wonderful fortune gave Max Racing its first GT300 podium finish since they won the August 2021 race at Suzuka Circuit. It would have meant the world to everyone at Max Racing after a difficult 2022 season on and off the track. A personal drought came to an end for Sato with his first podium since October 2018 at Autopolis. It was a result that the late Tsuyoshi Oono, Max Racing’s founder and sometimes gentleman racer, would have been proud of.
In its first race, the new-look #27 Yogibo NSX GT3 (Yugo Iwasawa/Reimei Ito) finished an astonishing fourth place. Yoshida and Kawaai finished fifth aboard the #52 GreenBrave GR Supra, just ahead of Spengler and Seiji Ara in the #7 Studie M4.
After the #88 JLOC Huracán of Kogure and Yuya Motojima crashed out late, the sister #87 Bamboo Airways Huracán (Kosuke Matsuura/Natsu Sakaguchi) salvaged a respectable seventh-place finish for JLOC. The #2 muta GR86’s loose wheel came when it was running in eighth, and muta Racing INGING’s misfortune benefitted the #60 Syntium LMcorsa GR Supra (Hiroki Yoshimoto/Shunsuke Kohno) which finished in eighth. Tsutsumi and Taira would be classified 18th.
The #4 Goodsmile Hatsune Miku AMG (Nobuteru Taniguchi/Tatsuya Kataoka) finished ninth, while the #56 Realize/Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R (João Paulo de Oliveira/Teppei Natori) hung on despite an ABS issue to salvage the final point for defending GT300 champions Kondo Racing.
In 16th, the #31 apr Lexus LC500h GT (Koki Saga/Kazuto Kotaka) finished an eventful first race plagued with multiple issues keeping the windshield wiper mounted correctly and even had an issue getting up to speed on the final “restart”.
Autobacs SUPER GT Series races are seldom uneventful, and this race certainly had a lot happening within a two-hour, 45-minute time frame. One could argue that it might have been too eventful to keep up with!
Next on the schedule is the renewal of SUPER GT’s annual Golden Week holiday tradition, the Fujimaki Group Fuji GT 450km Race on Thursday, 4 May.
Images © GTA
