Koudai Tsukakoshi and Kakunoshin Ohta began the process of recovering from a first-lap crash at Okayama, by giving the new Honda Civic Type R-GT its first pole in Qualifying for the SUPER GT Fuji GT 3 Hours Race.
The #17 Astemo Civic of Tsukakoshi and Ohta was the class of the GT500 field on a beautiful Friday afternoon for time trials. Ohta had set the fastest time in Practice earlier in the morning, and in Q1 for the GT500 cars, he led a Honda 1-2-3 ahead of the two ARTA Mugen Civics – the #8 of Tomoki Nojiri and the #16 of Hiroki Otsu. Ohta’s best lap of 1:26.709 ended up being the quickest time of the day.
Q1 was close, with 15 cars separated by just over a second. The only outlier was the #24 Realize Corporation Advan Nissan Z (Tsugio Matsuda/Teppei Natori), which retreated to the pits with a mechanical issue before Natori could make a proper Q1 run. However, thanks to a tweak in the qualifying rules, Natori and Matsuda can start tomorrow’s race at the back of the GT500 grid in 15th.
In Q2, the balance of power shifted somewhat towards the two works Nissan Z NISMO GT500s. Ronnie Quintarelli set a 1:27.077 in the #23 Motul Autech Z to lead the session, followed closely by Atsushi Miyake in the #3 Niterra Motul Z in second.
But the cherry red Astemo Civic was still very fast too. Koudai Tsukakoshi’s Q2 time of 1:27.222 was the third-fastest – and when combined with Ohta’s best time from Q1, the aggregate time of 2:53.931 (average speed of 188.899 km/h) gave Astemo Real Racing and the new Civic Type R-GT the pole position.
It was the first pole for Astemo Real Racing and ace driver Tsukakoshi since September 2019 at Sportsland Sugo – and for GT500 sophomore Ohta, it is his first in the premier class.
“This was my first pole position in a while,” remarked Tsukakoshi, “and I regret that I wasn’t able to take the top position in Q2. Since Ohta-san ran a fast time to take the top position in Q1, I became the fortunate recipient of that. In tomorrow’s race, I want to make up for that debt. But because I went into Q2 with the pressure of us having the fastest time in Q1, I thought I was going to be sick to my stomach! In tomorrow’s race, I want to finish in this same top position.”
“Because I took the top position in Q1, team manager (Katsutomo) Kaneishi got mad at me for putting so much pressure on Tsukakoshi! But I am really glad that we got pole position,” added Ohta.
Both drivers earned their first three championship points of the season following the retirement at Okayama.
The #3 Niterra Z of Miyake and Mitsunori Takaboshi qualified second with a total time of 2:54.339, and both drivers earned two points in the standings.
Just 0.020s off was the #23 Motul Z of Quintarelli and Katsumasa Chiyo in third, earning the final bonus point in qualifying.
In fourth was the #8 ARTA Civic of Nojiri and Nobuharu Matsushita, followed by the #12 Marelli Impul Z (Kazuki Hiramine/Bertrand Baguette) in fifth, and the #100 Stanley Civic (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino) in sixth.
It was an unhappy session for the Toyota Gazoo Racing camp at Toyota-owned Fuji Speedway. The best of the GR Supras was the #14 Eneos X Prime GR Supra (Kazuya Oshima/Nirei Fukuzumi) in seventh, a stark contrast from taking up four of the top five places on the grid at Okayama. Oshima spun off at the transition from Coca-Cola Corner to 100R during his Q2 attack.
That spin also had implications further up the field. Oshima nearly got collected by the #16 ARTA Civic of Ren Sato as he rejoined the track. The two avoided a collision and Sato actually set a time that would have put him and Hiroki Otsu second on the grid. However, Sato’s time was deleted as it was set while yellow flags were waved, dropping them to 14th on the grid for the race on Saturday.
The #19 WedsSport Advan GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi) qualified eighth as the best of the non-Bridgestone teams.
Meanwhile, the #36 au TOM’S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi/Kenta Yamashita) could only manage 11th-fastest in Qualifying. TOM’S and Tsuboi entered the race meeting as the defending Fuji Golden Week race winners, with a chance to become the first team in SUPER GT history to win four consecutive races in any class – but those chances just took a critical hit.
GT300 was full of intrigue in qualifying, as the #88 JLOC Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 of Takashi Kogure and Yuya Motojima won the pole position following a strong showing in Practice.
Motojima led the first group of cars and drivers that took part in Q1 with a best lap of 1:36.084, and that ended up being quicker than the top time from the second Q1 group – a 1:36.166 from the #4 Goodsmile Hatsune Miku Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Tatsuya Kataoka.
They were among the 16 cars that went through to Q2 Group 1, the “top split” – and in Q2, Kogure set a virtually identical lap time of 1:36.066 at the chequered flag. The flagship JLOC #88 car’s total time was 3:12.150 (average speed of 170.979 km/h), and just 18 milliseconds separated the two drivers’ best times.
This was the first GT300 pole position for both JLOC drivers. Kogure won 12 pole positions in GT500 – his last was back at Sepang Circuit in June 2012. Motojima got his first in his ninth season of GT300 racing.
“This is my first pole position in the GT300 class, and I am really glad about this,” said Kogure. “I want to thank everyone on the team and Motojima-san. Thank you so much! This time Motojima-san was really fast, so I felt a lot of pressure as a result – and I was stressed out all the time I was driving in Q2! But since we finally got pole position, I am very happy. Tomorrow, I want to go for the same kind of good result.”
“It took a long time to get this first pole position,” Motojima said. “The condition of the car was good, and I knew that Kogure-san would be fast, but with the new qualifying format I knew that I also had to drive fast for us to get pole position, so I felt the pressure before Q1. But I am glad that we were both able to drive fast and get pole position.”
This was also the first JLOC pole position since the 2018 season finale at Mobility Resort Motegi, won by future GT500 Champion Kazuki Hiramine – and the first for the Huracán GT3 EVO2.
Qualifying in second with a total time of 3:12.632 was the #4 Hatsune Miku AMG of Kataoka and Nobuteru Taniguchi, followed by last year’s GT300 race winners, the #56 Realize Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R (Daiki Sasaki/João Paulo de Oliveira), which made the best use of the Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3’s BoP buff to qualify third. Following genuine fear of Bridgestone’s teams dominating GT300 after Okayama, Yokohama clients locked out the top three spots on the grid.
Bridgestone still got two cars in the top five: The #65 LEON Pyramid AMG (Naoya Gamou/Takuro Shinohara) qualified in fourth, ahead of the Okayama-winning #2 muta Racing Toyota GR86 (Yuui Tsutsumi/Hibiki Taira) in fifth, which was the top GTA-GT300 vehicle.
In sixth, as the best of the Michelin runners, was the #45 PONOS Ferrari 296 GT3 (Kei Cozzolino/Lilou Wadoux), followed by the top Dunlop car, the #96 K-tunes Lexus RC F GT3 (Morio Nitta/Shinichi Takagi).
The best single lap was set by SUPER GT newcomer Charlie Fagg, who set a time of 1:35.835 in the #777 D’station Aston Martin Vantage GT3 during Q2. Fagg’s best lap plus Fujii’s best lap of 1:36.295 in Q1 would have given D’station Racing and the new Vantage GT3 the pole position by 0.020 seconds. But Fujii’s lap was deleted due to a track limits infringement, kicking them out of the top split.
Thus, they’ll have to settle for 22nd on the grid tomorrow – with Fujii and Fagg running as a two-driver team after Marco Sørensen was scratched from the line-up before the race meeting.
The other sensational story out of GT300 qualifying was the long-awaited debut of the #11 Gainer Tanax Nissan Fairlady Z (Ryuichiro Tomita/Keishi Ishikawa). The car only had its first shakedown test at Okayama on 25 April – and then before Practice, the car failed to clear technical inspection because of a discrepancy in the width of the car as measured by the team and the circuit.
It meant that Tomita’s Q1 run would be the first time the car took to the track in an official SUPER GT session. And to the surprise of many, given the car’s difficult construction, Tomita set a time in Q1 that put the #11 Gainer Z solidly into the Q2 “top split”. But before Ishikawa could make a run in Q2, transmission problems kept him from going out. They’ll start from the pit lane tomorrow.
※UPDATE: GT300 Qualifying Results have been amended after a calculation error.
https://twitter.com/SUPERGT_JP/status/1786550700245446776
The Fuji GT 3 Hours Race starts Saturday at 13:30 JST / 05:30 BST.
Images © GTA, Gainer
