The young history of the Eneos Super Taikyu Series’ Fuji Super TEC 24 Hours has seen its share of memorable moments since 2018 – but never a dramatic final hour pursuit to decide the overall victory. Until this year, that is.
Zhongsheng ROOKIE Racing took the lead in the final 24 minutes of the race as Naoya Gamou overhauled a one-lap deficit to pilot the #14 Mercedes-AMG GT3 to outright victory, together with co-drivers Ryuta Ukai, Hibiki Taira, and Tatsuya Kataoka.
The final hour began with the #81 GTNET Motor Sports Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 holding the advantage since before dawn on Sunday. Gentleman driver Joe Shindo was aboard for the final hours, needing to meet his minimum drive time before the end of the race.
But even with a one-lap advantage at the start of his turn, Shindo would have to dig deeper than he had ever done before in his brief GT3 racing career. Gamou was able to unlap himself and then cut as much as five seconds per lap out of the deficit, every lap.
It seemed like a matter of when and not if the change of lead would happen, and Gamou made his move around the outside of the fast sweeping 100R corner – moments after another vehicle spun in front of the top two – and drove away to an amazing victory. The blue and yellow Mercedes crew overcame an early incident which brought out a full course yellow, and a drive-through penalty for a jump start along the way.
ROOKIE Racing’s win was the first overall win at the Fuji 24 Hours for the team and its drivers. It’s the second overall win for the Mercedes-AMG GT3, the same model that won the race in 2020.
And as team founder and Toyota chairman Akio “Morizo” Toyoda celebrated with his drivers in parc ferme, one has to wonder if this success and the lessons learned from it might influence the development of Toyota’s new Lexus-badged GT3 racer…
Nissan’s bid for a fifth win in six years fell short, the #819 GT-R carrying the Daishin orange and MP Racing yellow finished just 46.926 seconds off the win. It was the first time in the history of the Fuji 24 Hours that the top two cars in the overall classification finished on the same lap.
Shindo, Kiyoto Fujinami, Takayuki Aoki, Natsu Sakaguchi, and Noboyuki Oyagi (who did not drive) overcame a 60-second penalty stop during the race for pitting during an FCY intervention.
The ST-X class podium was completed by the #202 KCMG Honda NSX GT3 of Paul Ip, Edoardo Liberati, Marchy Lee, Ho-Pin Tung, and Marchy Lee. Similar to the lead battle which saw a sudden change of position in the final minutes, the battle for third was decided when Liberati in the camo-pattern #202 Honda chased down and caught the #1 HELM Motorsports GT-R GT3 of Yutaka Toriba.
Liberati made his move for the final podium position with five minutes to go, to give the all-international KCMG team its first ST-X podium in Super Taikyu.
Toriba finished just 4.022 seconds off the podium. He along with HELM Motorsports co-drivers Yuya and Reiji Hiraki, Shaun Thong, and Jann Mardenborough got pole position and led well into the evening on Saturday. But before half-distance, the blue and orange HELM GT-R ran across some brake issues – in one of two unscheduled trips to the garage, the mechanics had to change out a right-front brake rotor that had cracked in three places!
All five ST-X class entries finished the race, but multiple extended stays in the garage for the #31 apr Lexus RC F GT3 (Hiroaki Nagai/Kazuto Kotaka/Koki Saga/Hideki Nagai/Yuichi Nakayama/Yuta Kamimura) would take them out of contention after sunrise.
In total, of the 52 cars that started the race across eight classes, only four cars failed to finish.
Four hours and 55 minutes in, during an evening fireworks show over Fuji Speedway, the #555 Auto Factory Mercedes-AMG GT4 of Jun Tashiro went off course and crashed at Dunlop Corner, bringing out the first Safety Car intervention of the race.
Just before the stroke of midnight, there was a scary moment when the ST-4 class #884 SHADE Racing Toyota GR86 struck an animal in the darkness, and then caught fire spectacularly as it stopped in the final sector. Shinnosuke Yamada was able to walk away from the plume of fire and smoke.
And then, past the half-distance mark, the #7 Shinryo Racing Team Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X stopped at Dunlop Corner with what proved to be a terminal engine failure. A full course yellow was deployed to retrieve the stranded Mitsubishi.
But on the ensuing restart, Takamitsu Matsui had a scary head-on crash at Dunlop Corner. Matsui was able to walk away from the wreckage of the #86 TOM’s Spirit GR86.
But the hard hit against the guardrail on the right side of the approach to Dunlop Corner would require a 90-minute red flag to repair and replace the section of damaged barriers. The race would resume after sunrise at 5:00 AM on Sunday and also forced a reduction in the minimum drive time for all teams’ “A” drivers – the amateur drivers anchoring each car.
All six of the innovative cars in the ST-Q exhibition class took the chequered flag as well, including the world’s first liquid hydrogen-fuelled race car.
In its debut as a liquid hydrogen vehicle, the #32 ROOKIE Racing Toyota GR Corolla H2 Concept completed 358 laps, and finished in 47th overall. The car averaged roughly 14 laps between pit stops, while completing a number of planned maintenance stops in its garage – this after a fire in a March testing accident delayed the car’s race debut in liquid hydrogen format.
Naturally, “Morizo” – the man with the vision to spearhead this project – took the car home to the chequered flag accompanied by Masahiro Sasaki, Hiroaki Ishiura, Yasuhiro Ogura, and Toyota Gazoo Racing WRC team boss Jari-Matti Latvala.
Simply finishing the full 24 hours was another landmark achievement for the Hydrogen Corolla, on a day that began with a landmark announcement before the start of the Fuji 24 Hours that hydrogen combustion engines – similar to the one powering the GR Corolla H2 Concept – would be welcomed to the FIA World Endurance Championship and 24 Hours of Le Mans by 2026.
Also in ST-Q, the #230 Nissan NISMO Z Racing Concept finished eighth overall, and was ahead of all but one of the homologated GT4 cars in the ST-X class. Daiki Sasaki, Kohei Hirate, Mitsunori Takaboshi and Tsugio Matsuda drove the car which served as a prototype for the new Nissan Z GT4 – which returned to this year’s race, still running outside GT4 homologation on carbon-neutral synthetic fuel and boasting new aerodynamics.
The carbon-neutral fuelled “Toyobaru” sisters finished just a lap apart from each other after 24 hours. This time the battle was won by the #28 ROOKIE Racing Toyota GR86 CNF Concept (Keizo Kato/Kenta Yamashita/Kazuya Oshima/Daisuke Toyoda/Yuhi Sekiguchi/Eisuke Sasaki), in 22nd overall. The #61 Team SDA Engineering Subaru BRZ CNF Concept (Koichi Hirota/Hideki Yamauchi/Takuto Iguchi/Kazuhiro Ito/Kota Sasaki/Takuma Kamada) was 23rd overall.
DSC would at this time like to send well wishes to Kamada after the national rally champion suffered a broken hip in a practice accident in Gunma following this race.
Mechanical troubles hampered both the #55 Mazda Spirit Racing Mazda3 Bio Concept and #271 Team HRC Honda Civic Type R CNF-R along the day, but both cars were still able to take the chequered flag.
The biodiesel-fuelled #55 Mazda (Kazuhiro Terakawa/Yutaka Seki/Kaoru Ijiri/Ikuo Maeda/Ryohei Sakaguchi/Yuui Tsutsumi) finished 43rd overall, nine laps ahead of the debuting #271 Honda (Hideki Mutoh/Takuya Izawa/Hiroki Otsu/Syun Koide).
The ST-Z class was won with a near-flawless drive from the #52 Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave Toyota GR Supra GT4. After three ST-3 class wins at the Fuji 24 Hours in five years, Manabu Yamazaki, Hiroki Yoshida, Naoki Hattori, Kohta Kawaai, and Seita Nonaka drove the GreenBrave squad to its first ST-Z class win, five laps ahead of the next car in class and seventh overall.
Add in the season-opening win at Suzuka and Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave has had a perfect start to its ST-Z programme.
Completing the podium was the #21 Hitotsuyama Audi R8 LMS GT4 (Daisuke Yamawaki/Seiya Jin/Sean Walkinshaw/Yuki Ano/Shinichi Takagi/Yuki Fujii) in second, and the #885 SHADE Racing GR Supra GT4 (Hiro Hayashi/Katsuyuki Hiranaka/Eijiro Shimizu/Morio Nitta/Yuhki Nakayama) in third. All three ST-Z podium finishers reached the top ten overall.
Only one car had the speed to challenge the GreenBrave Supra through most of the race – but Porsche Team EBI Waimarama had its heart ripped out late in the race yet again. The #22 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport (Shota Kitazono/Katsumasa Chiyo/Naoya Yamano/Kizuna/Satoshi Motoyama/Giuliano Alesi) dropped out of contention after a severe radiator issue in the last three hours of the race.
Things looked also excellent for the #26 Team ZeroOne Nissan Z GT4 (Ryuichiro Otsuka/Ryuichiro Tomita/Teppei Natori/Takuro Shinohara/Masataka Yanagida) which was fighting for a podium – until it was delayed for five hours in the garage with a mechanical problem of its own. The car would come back out to finish the race, albeit in ninth in its class.
As for the #20 Naniwa Denso Team Impul Z, which had the “Kazuki Quartet” – Hiramine, Hoshino, Oki, and the returning Nakajima – they along with Yuki Tanaka and Keishi Ishikawa finished eighth.
For the third straight year, the #2 K’s Frontier KTM Cars X-Bow GTX won the ST-1 class with the same team, same car, and same crew of drivers.
Taiyo Ida, Hiroki Katoh, Hiroki Yoshimoto, Kazuho Takahashi, and Takashi Kobayashi won the class by 37 laps against its sole competition, the #47 D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT8R (Tatsuya Hoshino/Manabu Orido/Kenji Hama/Jake Parsons/Tsubasa Kondo/Casper Stevenson).
What’s more, they finished in the overall top five for the third straight year – fifth, ahead of the ST-X class #31 apr Lexus RC F GT3.
ST-2 created one of the feel-good stories of the race as Endless Sports’ #13 Toyota GR Yaris took a class win dedicated to Endless’ late founder, Isao Hanazato, who passed away on 3 February at the age of 71.
His son, Masaya Hanazato, anchored a crew with Mizuki Ishizaka, Reimei Ito, and Hitoshi Okada along the way to a two-lap win in the class.
The #6 Shinryo Racing Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X (Tomohiro Tomimasu/Yasushi Kikuchi/Masazumi Ohashi/Hitoshi Gotoh/Takahiro Matsuzawa) came second, while the #225 KTMS GR Yaris (Kengo Ichijo/Rin Arakawa/Jiei Okuzumi/Shunji Okumoto) saw what should have been a dominant win of their own come undone in the final hours of the race due to mechanical problems.
Another sudden change of leader came in the ST-3 class, where Tracy Sports with Delta’s two Lexus RC 350s came away with a 1-2 finish in the final hour – led by the #38 entry of Sesshu Kondo, Toshiki Ishimori, Yoshiyuki Tsuruga, Shunsuke Ozaki, and Takanobu Ishizuka.
Victory was all but assured for the #16 Okabe Jidosha Motorsports Nissan Fairlady Z34 (Hirokazu Suzuki/Toru Tanaka/Tetsuya Tanaka/Kazuomi Komatsu/Atsushi Miyake/Tsubasa Mekaru) until the car stopped, unsighted, with an alternator issue and went straight to the parking lot repair zone. The #16 Fairlady Z would still finish the race, 16 laps down in its class.
The #39 Lexus (Kazuaki Yasui/Takashi Ito/Takumi Sanada/Mamoru Okada/Shinya Fujita/Yoshinari Fujiwara) finished four laps behind in its class.
With several big hitters in ST-4 embroiled in mechanical dramas and accidents, Team G/Motion’ won the ST-4 class as Resshu Shioya, Takao Seto, Kengo Yamamoto, Ken “Piston” Nishizawa, and Toshihiro Kubota drove their #60 Toyota GR86 to its second straight win of the 2023 season.
Over Drive’s #66 Mazda Roadster RF (Kousei Kanto/Kyosuke Inomata/Takahisa Ohno/Shigetomo Shimono/Chihiro Inagaki/Tatsuya Osaki) finished second in ST-4, six laps behind the winner – with another four laps to Asano Racing Service’s #18 WedsSport GR86 (Takeo Asano/Shinnosuke Ito/Ryotaro Sawai/Kazunori Nishimura/Shoya Suzuki/Kazumi Mikami) in third. Mikami was one of three women who entered the race – and the only one to stand on her class’ podium.
Along with the retirements of SHADE Racing and TOM’s Spirit, the #3 Endless GR86 (Hiroyuki Saka/Ryo Ogawa/Togo Suganami/Yuya Motojima) and the #41 Tracy Sports with Delta GR86 (Tomoaki Ichimori/Yusuke Tomibayashi/Tatsuya Ishii/Dai Mizuno) each suffered significant mechanical issues that required long stays in the garage.
Finally, in the “cutie class” known as ST-5 – the least powerful but most thrifty of subcompacts was victorious. Team NOPRO won with its #17 Mazda Demio Diesel Turbo driven by Hideyoshi Nishizawa, Tobio Ohtani, Misaki Konishi, team founder Toshihiro Nogami, Hiroaki Yamamoto, and Junichi Agematsu.
It’s the third win in four years for one of NOPRO’s diesel-fuelled Demios, which needed two fewer pit stops than its petrol-powered rivals.
There was a gripping battle in the final two hours for second place in ST-5 between the #72 Nihon Automobile College (NATS) Mazda Roadster (Takumi Minamisawa/Tatsuya Ohara/Makoto Kanai/Toshiya Nojima/Tatsuya Ishii/Tetsuya Yamano) and the #65 Over Drive Roadster (Shuichiro Hokazono/Hirohito Ito/Tatsuya Ota/Eiji Niwa/Sena Kuronuma/Kyohei Kawamura).
Tetsuya Yamano, just two months removed from his terrifying crash at Suzuka aboard the yellow and blue #72, battled tail-to-nose with Tatsuya Ota in the #65. In the end it was Yamano who prevailed and brought his crew a second-place finish, double-stinting his way to the chequered flag and pulling away from Kuronuma in the trailing Roadster.
Significantly, in Bridgestone’s first race as the official tyre supplier to the Super Taikyu Series – there were no significant tyre failures to report, not just for the higher-class cars on slicks but for the ST-4 and ST-5 (and select ST-Q cars) using Bridgestone’s Potenza RE-series street tyres as an emergency measure.
The Eneos Super Taikyu Series returns for its third round of the 2023 season on 9 July with a double-header weekend at Sportsland Sugo.
Images © Super Taikyu Organisation (STO)
