The #36 au TOM’S Toyota GR Supra of Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita drove to a dominant win in the SUPER GT Motegi GT 300km Race – a win that has put TOM’S, Tsuboi, and Yamashita on the brink of another GT500 Championship.
Tsuboi started third in Sunday’s 63-lap race, starting behind polesitter Takuya Izawa in the #64 Modulo Honda Civic Type R-GT, and the orange #8 ARTA Mugen Civic Type R-GT of Nobuharu Matsushita who made it an early Honda 1-2.
In contrast to the all-day rainy weather on Saturday, the race on Sunday was held under clear, sunny skies with warm temperatures for the mid-autumn season. Based on that swing, the Modulo Civic of Izawa with its Dunlop tyres was expected to quickly drop down the order, but Honda’s elder statesman held a narrow lead over the Bridgestone-clad cars behind him.
On Lap 6, a promising weekend for the #11 Gainer Tanax Nissan Fairlady Z (Ryuichiro Tomita/Keishi Ishikawa) came to an abrupt and sudden end when Tomita pulled over past pit exit with an electrical problem. This brought out the first Full Course Yellow of the race. When that FCY was withdrawn on Lap 8, Izawa, Matsushita, and Tsuboi were heading into turn five. Izawa was held up enough by a slower GT300 car to allow Matsushita an opportunity to overtake Izawa around the outside – with only slight contact – and grab the lead.
Only one lap later, the right-rear tyre of the #25 Hoppy Schatz Toyota GR Supra (Togo Suganami/Takamitsu Matsui) came off in the S-Curves, bringing out another FCY. The restart would bring another reversal: Matsushita lagged when the FCY was withdrawn, allowing both Izawa and Tsuboi to move past him into first and second. Tsuboi wasn’t content to settle into second however. As he and Izawa diced through GT300 traffic, Tsuboi lunged up the inside of turn five to take the lead.
And despite carrying the highest Success Weight in the GT500 field – an effective 53 kilogrammes including the ‘Level 1’ fuel flow restrictor and 36kg of physical ballast – Tsuboi quickly began pulling away from Izawa and the field. By Lap 20, Tsuboi was now ahead by over ten seconds.
For the #36 TOM’S crew, this race was becoming heaven, but not for the dark horses in the #37 Deloitte TOM’S GR Supra. Ukyo Sasahara and Giuliano Alesi entered the weekend trailing Tsuboi and Yamashita by just two points. But an engine issue on Lap 12 would effectively bring an end to their race – a near-fatal blow to the #37 team’s title hopes.
Hiroaki Ishiura in the #38 KeePer Cerumo GR Supra was on the move quickly – he overtook Matsushita for third place, and then Izawa for second to make it a Toyota 1-2. Matsushita then found his way up to third place, heading up a long queue of cars that had been stuck behind.
Kenta Yamashita took over the leading #36 au TOM’S GR Supra after the routine pit stop on Lap 24. Pitting early on Lap 22 allowed Toshiki Oyu in the #38 KeePer GR Supra to hold onto second, followed by the two ARTA Civics – the #8 of Tomoki Nojiri and the #16 of Ren Sato, who’d taken over from Hiroki Otsu after the start.
Some of the other Toyotas began to encounter trouble. The #19 WedsSport Advan GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi) went to the garage, and the #14 Eneos X Prime GR Supra (Kazuya Oshima/Nirei Fukuzumi) broke down – all with the same engine problem that plagued the #37 Deloitte TOM’S GR Supra.
But nothing was stopping the white and orange au TOM’S GR Supra. Yamashita drove brilliantly over the course of his final stint, stretching the 10-second lead out to a 20-second lead as the laps ticked down.
It was the second win of the year for the #36 Toyota – and like last season, that second win for the #36 came in the penultimate round with a heavy Success Weight penalty. Asked how he felt after winning from second on the grid in a Toyota at Honda-owned Motegi, Tsuboi smiled and said: “I guess we did alright!
“Of course, I wanted to move into the lead from the start, but I didn’t think that things would work out this well. But the car was also good, and although we lost some speed on the straights due to the Success Weight and limited engine power, we were able to make good use of the FCY timing and pass the others. Since our strategy was to give Yamashita-san a long stint in the second half, I wanted to get as large a margin of lead as I could for him. Since we were able to get the win as a team without any mistakes, I think we did a good job.”
“It was a perfect weekend,” remarked Yamashita. “Since we were carrying the biggest load of Success Weight, we also had limited engine power, so I really didn’t think we were going to win. Because Tsuboi-san got the lead in the first half and built up a ten-second lead, that took some of the pressure off of me as I drove. The machine was fast and the pit work was fast too, and for this I thank everyone.”
Meanwhile, Nojiri began to chase down Oyu, caught him, and overtook Oyu for second place with ten to go. Nojiri would hold on to finish second in the #8 ARTA Civic as Oyu began to slip behind nursing an apparent brake issue.
So in the final laps, it came down to a race between the #38 Toyota and #16 Honda for the last podium place. Oyu’s car was still kicking up big clouds of brake smoke, and Sato was putting the pressure on. He even got ahead briefly with a dive up the inside at turn three but couldn’t hold on but for a split-second. Oyu held onto third and secured the KeePer GR Supra’s podium finish, by only 0.136 seconds over the #16 ARTA Civic!
The #39 Denso Kobelco SARD GR Supra (Yuhi Sekiguchi/Yuichi Nakayama) followed its Autopolis win with a fifth-place finish, followed by the #100 Stanley Civic Type R-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino) who gained a few places and finished sixth.
With these results, Tsuboi and Yamashita are now the odds-on favourites to win the GT500 Championship at the Suzuka GT 300km Grand Final on 8 December. They have an 18-point lead over Yamashita and Makino, a 22-point lead over Ishiura and Oyu, and a 23-point lead – with 23 points available – over Sasahara and Alesi.
Tsuboi could clinch his third GT500 title in four years, and Yamashita could clinch his second title, after Qualifying if they win the pole at Suzuka Circuit.
The top Nissan in the field was the #3 Niterra Motul Nissan Z NISMO (Mitsunori Takaboshi/Atsushi Miyake in seventh, just ahead of the #24 Realize Corporation Advan Z (Tsugio Matsuda/Teppei Natori) and the #23 Motul Autech Z (Katsumasa Chiyo/Ronnie Quintarelli) in ninth. It means Nissan’s teams cannot win the GT500 Championship in 2024.
After starting on the pole and leading laps, the #64 Modulo Civic of Izawa and Riki Okusa sunk to tenth at the end.
Last round at Autopolis, Takashi Kogure and Yuya Motojima went from 15th on the grid to win the race thanks to a well-timed Safety Car intervention. This time, they simply marched from 17th on the grid to take the #88 Venteny Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2’s third win of the year and second in a row.
No-tyre change strategies proved beneficial to several front-runners in GT300 including the #88 JLOC Huracán of Kogure and Motojima, who’ve kept their championship hopes alive going into Suzuka.
The #65 LEON Pyramid Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Naoya Gamou/Takuro Shinohara) finished second with that same pit strategy. Gamou and Shinohara continue to hold the GT300 Championship lead, now 11 points ahead of Kogure and Motojima.
The #18 UPGarage Honda NSX GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi/Syun Koide) picked up its first podium of the season in third place, while the polesitting #31 apr Lexus LC 500h (Kazuto Kotaka/Jin Nakamura) was knocked out of contention for a podium after being swept up in a multi-car accident late in the race.
A sixth-place finish for the #777 D’station Aston Martin Vantage GT3 (Tomonobu Fujii/Charlie Fagg) wouldn’t be enough to keep D’station Racing’s championship pursuit alive, while the #2 muta Racing Toyota GR86 (Yuui Tsutsumi/Hibiki Taira) laboured to a 13th-place finish. Tsutsumi and Taira are now 20 points out of the championship lead in third.
RESULTS >> | GT300
More to follow!
Images © GTA
