Saturday at Mobility Resort Motegi was rainy and treacherous for many teams – but seemingly, the #64 Modulo Honda Civic Type R-GT of Takuya Izawa and Riki Okusa was impervious.
Izawa and Okusa won the pole for tomorrow’s SUPER GT Motegi GT 300km Race with a combined time of 3:37.911 (average speed 158.63 kilometres per hour). The Modulo Civic’s Dunlop tyres have historically excelled in wet conditions, and after finishing with the best time in Practice despite six red flags for spins and standing water, they entered Qualifying as the favourites to win pole.
The rookie Okusa led GT500 Q1 with his best time of 1:49.255, and while the veteran Izawa’s best time of 1:48.656 wasn’t quite the best in Q2, it was more than good enough for Nakajima Racing to win its first SUPER GT pole since August 2021 – when Izawa put the Modulo Honda on pole position at Suzuka Circuit. It was Izawa’s fourth career pole and of course, Okusa’s first in the premier class.
They’ll lead an all-Honda front row alongside the #8 ARTA Mugen Civic Type R-GT (Tomoki Nojiri/Nobuharu Matsushita). Matsushita’s best time from Q2 (1:48.077) elevated the orange #8 ARTA Civic up to second in the final classification – as they desperately hope to keep their title hopes alive.
Meanwhile, championship leaders Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita overcame their 53 kilogrammes of Success Weight to qualify third in the #36 au TOM’S Toyota GR Supra, and gained a point over their nearest rivals in the championship.
Just behind them was the #38 KeePer Cerumo GR Supra (Hiroaki Ishiura/Toshiki Oyu) in fourth and the #14 Eneos X Prime GR Supra (Kazuya Oshima/Nirei Fukuzumi) in fifth.
The #37 Deloitte TOM’S GR Supra (Ukyo Sasahara/Giuliano Alesi), currently second in the points, will start eighth tomorrow ahead of the #100 Stanley Civic Type R-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino), third in points and starting in ninth.
The fastest Nissan Z NISMO GT500 was the #12 Marelli Impul Z (Kazuki Hiramine/Bertrand Baguette) in tenth, one spot ahead of the #3 Niterra Motul Z (Mitsunori Takaboshi/Atsushi Miyake) in 11th.
In GT300, the V8/hybrid-powered #31 apr Lexus LC 500h of Kazuto Kotaka and Jin Nakamura scored its first-ever pole position.
Nakamura got the car into the top 14 during the 20-minute Q1 session, which was interrupted and later prematurely stopped due to two red flags. That would get Kotaka into the ‘top split’ for GT300 Q2, and he set a 1:57.322 to capture his first pole since October 2020 at Fuji Speedway. For Nakamura, it was his first, and for apr, it was the team’s first since 2021 at Autopolis – with the previous Toyota Prius PHV apr GT.
Behind the Bridgestone-clad Lexus, the #7 Studie BMW M4 GT3 (Seiji Ara/Niklas Krütten) with its Michelin tyres qualified an impressive second place, ahead of the Yokohama-clad #18 UPGarage Honda NSX GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi/Syun Koide) in third.
Due to the wet weather conditions, only the times from Q2 sessions determined the grid order.
Championship leaders Naoya Gamou and Takuro Shinohara will start fourth in their #65 LEON Pyramid Mercedes-AMG GT3 after qualifying. While they failed to score championship points, neither did any of their nearest championship challengers who will all start several places behind.
This includes the #777 D’station Aston Martin Vantage GT3 (Tomonobu Fujii/Charlie Fagg) in ninth, the #2 muta Racing Toyota GR86 (Yuui Tsutsumi/Hibiki Taira) in 16th, and the #88 Venteny Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 (Takashi Kogure/Yuya Motojima) in 17th.
Motojima was judged not to have brought out the first red flag in GT300 Q1 – the rain that had persisted throughout the morning into Qualifying had worsened at that point, but he would still not be fast enough to make the top split for Q2. Ryohei Sakaguchi did however bring out the second red flag when he spun his #9 Pacific NAC VSpo AMG in the S-Curves, which ended the first leg of GT300 qualifying.
Kei Cozzolino set the fastest Q1 time in the #45 PONOS Ferrari 296 GT3, and Lilou Wadoux finished Q2 with the sixth-fastest time – as she and Cozzolino pursue their first victories tomorrow.
According to the weather forecasts, sunny weather awaits as the Motegi GT 300km Race starts tomorrow at 1:00 PM JST (local time)
Images © GTA
