The #16 ARTA Mugen Honda NSX-GT of Nirei Fukuzumi and Hiroki Otsu captured its first pole position of the season and will start first in tomorrow’s SUPER GT Suzuka GT 450km Race, in an afternoon of time trials dictated by the summer heat.
Much like summertime endurance sportscar races at Suzuka from years past, it was a hot, sunny afternoon on Saturday during Qualifying. It was apparent that the two ARTA NSXes would be a threat for pole after Fukuzumi laid down the fastest time in Practice earlier in the morning, and then in Q1, when the orange #8 ARTA NSX of Tomoki Nojiri finished first.
In fact, there was a tie for the fastest time between Nojiri, and Kohei Hirate in the #24 Realize Corporation Advan Nissan Z – who both set identical laps of 1:46.399. Since Nojiri set his time first, he won the tiebreaker and the honour of finishing as the fastest driver in that session.
Below the cut line were some very prominent cars. Katsumasa Chiyo and Mitsunori Takaboshi will start tenth in the #3 Niterra Motul Z, while second-ranked Sho Tsuboi and Ritomo Miyata will start 15th and last on the GT500 grid in their #36 au TOM’s Toyota GR Supra. Both cars were carrying the Stage 3 fuel flow restrictor as part of their Success Weight, depriving them of the horsepower they needed in the west end of the circuit.
The last two GT500 winning crews, the #1 Marelli Impul Z (Kazuki Hiramine/Bertrand Baguette) and the #19 WedsSport Advan GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi), also missed the cut in ninth and 13th. Toyota had a poor outing with just one of its cars advancing to Q2 – but in contrast, Honda saw all five of its cars make it through to the next session.
The high track temperatures combined with the demands of Suzuka’s twists and turns on the tyres also meant that the drivers had to be very cautious with their tyres. In essence, this turned Q2 into a one-shot qualifying session.
For half a lap, Toshiki Oyu in the orange #8 ARTA NSX was surely destined to take pole position, until he ran wide at Degner Curve II and skipped through the grass runoff.
Seconds later, the #23 Motul Autech Z of Ronnie Quintarelli took provisional pole with a 1:46.422, but he would be displaced by the black #16 ARTA NSX of Fukuzumi, who strung together blistering first and second sectors and carried that momentum through to finish with a 1:46.385, enough to win the pole by 37 milliseconds.
“When I saw the top time recorded by car #8 in Q1, I thought it would be hard to beat,” Fukuzumi said after Qualifying. “But Otsu-san drove hard in Q1 and got us through to Q2, and before the start of Q2 he and the team worked to adjust the condition of the car for me.”
“That is why I was able to run a good time in Q2. It was really due to those efforts by the team. I want to thank them for this!”
It was Fukuzumi’s fourth career GT500 pole position, his first since moving to the #16 crew this season – and his first since the 2021 Sugo round. And, it is a significant milestone for Honda as a whole: In the final GT500 race for the NSX around the Honda-owned Suzuka circuit, Honda’s flagship supercar will start on the pole.
Quintarelli would end up in second place, giving himself and five-time Suzuka winner Tsugio Matsuda a front-row start in the #23 Motul Z. Sunday will mark 84 days since Matsuda’s terrifying, high-G crash into the catch fence at 130R Corner in the Spring edition of the Suzuka 450km race.
Heading up the second row are a pair of Hondas, the #17 Astemo NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Nobuharu Matsushita) in third, and the #64 Modulo NSX-GT (Takuya Izawa/Kakunoshin Ohta) in fourth.
Oyu’s attack lap in the #8 ARTA NSX-GT was originally good for third place, but the time was deleted as Oyu exceeded track limits – the GTA panel of stewards felt that the grass runoff was not a sufficient deterrent.
That will put the #8 car seventh on the grid, next to the #100 Stanley NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino) in eighth. There was uncertainty if Makino would race at all this weekend after he sustained a minor concussion during last weekend’s Super Formula Championship race at Motegi, after his car flipped during a multi-car accident. Makino was ruled out of running in Practice and Qualifying, but he will be cleared to start Sunday’s 77-lap race.
This meant that Yamamoto drove alone in Practice, got the car through in Q1, where Team Kunimitsu accepted their maximum eighth-place starting position.
The only Toyota that made the cut in Q2 was the #38 ZENT Cerumo GR Supra (Yuji Tachikawa/Hiroaki Ishiura) in fifth. Tachikawa, a four-time SUPER GT race winner at Suzuka, is making his final start at the circuit as a driver. They’ll share row three with the #24 Realize Z of Hirate and Daiki Sasaki, which had its best time deleted for track limits in Q2 but did not impact the final qualifying order.
History was made in GT300 as 34-year-old Hideki Yamauchi became the new record holder for most career pole positions. He and Takuto Iguchi will start up front in the #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport which won its second pole of 2023.
The blue boxer led every session on Saturday: Yamauchi was quickest in Practice, and in Q1 Group A, Iguchi demonstrated what the car was capable of with a top time of 1:58.975 to lead his group. Group B was led by Yoshiaki Katayama in the #6 Dobot Audi R8 LMS GT3, fresh off its first GT300 podium at Fuji Speedway.
That was just a taste of what was to come in Q2. With similar conditions to what the GT500 runners faced, Yamauchi made the most of his one and only attack lap, setting purple sector times at every checkpoint and reeling off a massive 1:57.608 to take provisional pole. No other driver had an answer in the final two minutes of Q2.
It was Yamauchi’s 14th career pole position, which broke a three-way tie between himself, two-time GT300 champion Shinichi Takagi, and 2005 champion Kota Sasaki – who was in the garage with his former colleagues at R&D Sport to see the historic qualifying run from his successor.
“I am just really relieved. It is great that I got this!” exclaimed Yamauchi. “I am really happy to get this record. If it wasn’t for everyone on the team, it wouldn’t have been possible to achieve this record without their continued efforts. The Subaru BRZ is the greatest! I am so grateful for this!”
“But we still have tomorrow’s race, so I am going to concentrate on that first of all,” he added, shifting his focus back to Sunday’s race. Iguchi and Yamauchi led early on before a Safety Car intervention precipitated a drop to sixth place at the chequered flag.
Takagi came up to Yamauchi and congratulated him in pit lane after he fell short of taking the record for himself. Takagi qualified second in the #96 K-tunes Lexus RC F GT3, which is the best qualifying result of the season for the “golden pair” of Takagi and Morio Nitta.
It is perhaps symbolic that the “golden pair” of GT300’s past will share the front row with this generation’s golden duo of Iguchi and Yamauchi.
One race after a late spin cost them a win at Fuji, Nobuteru Taniguchi and Tatsuya Kataoka will start third in the #4 Goodsmile Hatsune Miku Mercedes-AMG GT3, next to the #87 Bamboo Airways Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO (Kosuke Matsuura/Natsu Sakaguchi) in fourth. The #50 Anest Iwata Racing RC F (Igor Fraga/Yuga Furutani/Miki Koyama) qualified a season-best fifth place.
Behind them were the #60 Syntium LMcorsa Toyota GR Supra (Hiroki Yoshimoto/Shunsuke Kohno), the #88 JLOC Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 (Takashi Kogure/Yuya Motojima), and the #27 Yogibo Honda NSX GT3 Evo22 (Yugo Iwasawa/Reimei Ito).
The #2 muta Racing Toyota GR86 (Yuui Tsutsumi/Hibiki Taira/Hiroki Katoh) originally qualified seventh, but Tsutsumi’s best lap from Q2 was deleted due to a track limits infringement and the car was relegated to 14th on the grid.
As a result, the #56 Realize/Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R of João Paulo de Oliveira and Teppei Natori moved up to ninth on the grid, the #6 Dobot R8 of Katayama, Roberto Merhi, and Seiya Jin inherited tenth, and the #7 Studie BMW M4 GT3 of championship leader Seiji Ara and returning BMW factory co-driver Bruno Spengler moved up to 13th.
Both the #7 Studie M4 and #56 Realize GT-R advanced to Q2 despite carrying the maximum 100kg of Success Weight – and for that matter, the #2 muta GR86 was stuck on +90kg and did well just to make the cut.
The same couldn’t be said for some unlucky runners: Both Gainer Nissan GT-Rs missed Q2, with the #10 Ponos Gainer GT-R (Hironobu Yasuda/Riki Okusa) down in 17th, and the #11 Gainer TanaX GT-R (Ryuichiro Tomita/Keishi Ishikawa/Yusuke Shiotsu) starting 25th and last after winning the last race at Fuji.
Both cars from apr Racing also missed out, the #30 apr GR86 (Hiroaki Nagai/Manabu Orido/Yuta Kamimura) and the #31 apr Lexus LC500h (Koki Saga/Kazuto Kotaka/Yuki Nemoto) – as did one of the top cars in the championship table, the #52 Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave GR Supra (Hiroki Yoshida/Kohta Kawaai) which will start 21st.
Sunday’s race starts at 14:45 JST (local time) / 6:15 BST.
Images © GTA
