The race was wild and eventful, yet the result was familiar. For the second year in a row, Sho Tsuboi, Kenta Yamashita, and TGR Team au TOM’S rolled into the season-opening SUPER GT Okayama GT 300km Race and won it in commanding fashion. This time, the reigning GT500 Champions also led a Toyota GR Supra podium sweep.
Heading into the opening weekend it looked like a very strong possibility that it would rain on Sunday. Sure enough, rain arrived over Okayama International Circuit in the early morning and continued to fall as the 43 cars rolled out to the grid. With the standing water and cool temperatures, the 82-lap race officially began under the control of the Nissan Z Safety Car.
After four laps of pacing, the #14 Eneos X Prime GR Supra of polesitter Nirei Fukuzumi was finally ready to lead the field to the green flag and begin the 2025 season properly. But within seconds there was carnage further back in the GT500 pack. Hiroaki Ishiura spun coming out of the first corner, and his #38 KeePer Cerumo GR Supra was collected by the #16 ARTA Mugen Honda Civic Type R-GT of Ren Sato, then the #12 TRS Impul Nissan Z NISMO GT500 of Bertrand Baguette. Debris was scattered throughout the first two corners, Baguette’s car knocked the protective sponge barriers out of place, and Ishiura took a hard enough impact to trip the G-sensor in his car.
The race was quickly put under a Safety Car, then a Red Flag which lasted for 30 minutes. Sato and Baguette walked away from their damaged vehicles. Ishiura was taken to the medical centre via ambulance as a precaution but thankfully suffered no significant injuries.
By the time the Red Flag was lifted at 1:55 PM, the heaviest rain had stopped falling but the track was still only suitable for wet tyres. On lap 11 the green flag came back out. Fukuzumi led away from the #1 au TOM’S GR Supra of Tsuboi, but a twitch out of Piper Corner allowed Tsuboi to close in and dive up the inside for the lead at Redman Corner. Tadasuke Makino in the #100 Stanley Civic was close behind in third, while two Nissans battled for fourth – the #24 Realize Z of Teppei Natori and the #3 Niterra Z of Daiki Sasaki. As they went through turn one, Sasaki spun off into the gravel on Lap 14, bringing the Safety Car back out again.
The stop-start nature of the early stages continued when the top two cars in GT300 collided at Piper Corner on lap 21. There was some discourse at the moment over Tomonobu Fujii appearing to pass polesitter Tatsuya Kataoka for the lead in a yellow flag zone. But when the #4 Goodsmile Hatsune Miku AMG spun the #777 D’station Vantage GT3, leaving Fujii stranded in the gravel and Kataoka to pick up a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact, the earlier debate was rendered irrelevant. The Full Course Yellow (FCY) was later deployed to neutralise the field, and lifted from lap 24.
This would be the final interruption for a while, thankfully. Tsuboi was able to settle into a strong rhythm at the front and built a 12-second lead to Fukuzumi by the halfway mark. Ukyo Sasahara had been chewing through the field, driving the #37 Deloitte TOM’S GR Supra to third place from 14th on the grid. But Sasahara also pushed the #64 Modulo Civic of Riki Okusa off course earlier and was hit with a (series-first) ten-second time penalty for rough driving. And in fourth place was the #17 Astemo Civic of Koudai Tsukakoshi.
Since the restart, the track was drying, though not enough for teams to take slicks before the race reached two-thirds’ distance. Tsuboi was the last of the leaders to make a routine stop and driver change – he pitted from the lead on lap 52 and handed the car over to co-driver Yamashita. Yamashita re-entered the race with a 17-second lead over the #14 Toyota of Kazuya Oshima in second, Giuliano Alesi was third in the #37 Toyota, and GT500 rookie Syun Koide was fourth in the #17 Astemo Civic.
But soon, the track was dry enough for teams to consider a switch to slicks. The #100 Stanley Civic already lost out by making its first pit stop much earlier than the rest of its rivals, so they were in a position to be the first to gamble. Naoki Yamamoto was a lap down and still had to crawl out of the pits carefully, but in just a few laps, Yamamoto was up to speed and other cars followed him onto slicks.
With 20 laps to go, Yamashita made his pit stop to switch to slick tyres – a lap after Oshima and a lap after Alesi. They remained in the same order as Yamashita’s lead grew to 20 seconds, and climbing – until the Safety Car came out again with 16 laps remaining. The #8 ARTA Civic of Nobuharu Matsushita was trying to hold off the #19 WedsSport Advan GR Supra of Sena Sakaguchi for fifth. Sakaguchi dived up the inside of Mike Knight Corner but there wasn’t much of a gap to shoot for. The two made contact, and once they reached Attwood Curve, Sakaguchi slid off course with what turned out to be a brake fire.
Ironically, the other Yokohama-clad GT500 car – the #24 Realize Corporation Advan Z – had retreated to the garage earlier for several laps due to an apparent brake issue.
It would take a ten-lap sprint to the finish to settle this race: Yamashita nailed the restart and kept Oshima, Alesi, and a chasing pack of cars behind him at bay.
And after nearly three hours, the orange and white #1 au GR Supra took the chequered flag, by 2.8 seconds over the #14 Eneos GR Supra. TOM’S, Tsuboi and Yamashita won their third consecutive SUPER GT race dating back to the penultimate race of 2024 at Motegi – becoming the first team and driver combination to win three races in a row since… TOM’S and Tsuboi did it in this race exactly one year ago.
“After being disappointed with yesterday’s results, I still came away with confidence about the ability to perform well in the rain, so I was determined to end this race day with a victory,” said Tsuboi. “I started the race with a strong feeling that I would pass any rival no matter what the conditions. In the early stages, I was able to make my move and expand my lead, and since the wet tyre also performed well when the track got dry. I felt that I made up for yesterday. The teams also brought everything together well, and the strategy was perfect. In that sense, I feel this was a perfect day.”
Yamashita took his fourth win at Okayama in the last five years, tying him for the most all-time GT500 wins at the circuit.
“Like last year, Tsuboi and the team created a good lead over the field, so when I got the car I was able to run from there with ease. When the Safety Car came out midway through, I thought, ‘Oh, no!’ But I was able to warm up the tyres and build a big lead again after the restart. So, I think I was able to do what I thought I could,” he said.
The two drivers captured their eighth career GT500 victories, moving further up the all-time list and ahead of a pack of great drivers, including a pair of Toyota’s 24 Hours of Le Mans winners, Kazuki Nakajima and Ryo Hirakawa. At the upcoming Fuji GT 3 Hour Race: GW Special, Tsuboi and Yamashita could become the first drivers to win four consecutive SUPER GT races.
Oshima and Fukuzumi opened the season with a runner-up finish. Sasahara and Alesi’s bid for a podium was ruined by the Safety Car, and the outstanding ten-second time penalty that took the #37 Deloitte GR Supra off the podium. But on the last lap, Toyota still ended up sweeping the podium.
That’s because the #39 Denso Kobelco SARD GR Supra of Yuhi Sekiguchi and Sacha Fenestraz came from 15th and last on the grid to finish third place. Fenestraz was running seventh with two laps to go, behind Koide, Matsushita, and Yamamoto in what would have been the battle for the final podium place. Fenestraz overtook Yamamoto with the aid of slower GT300 traffic on the penultimate lap.
Then on the final lap, Koide and Matsushita’s hard battling allowed Fenestraz to pass them both at the Hairpin. Matsushita then collided with Koide at the next corner, sending Koide off into the gravel and out of the race with half a lap left.
It was a welcome SUPER GT return for Fenestraz and a great result for co-driver Sekiguchi and SARD, completing Toyota’s first podium sweep since the end of the 2021 season.
Despite being on a difficult strategy, Yamamoto and Makino finished fourth in the #100 Stanley Civic, thanks to a time penalty that dropped the #8 ARTA Civic from fourth to seventh. Sasahara and Alesi were fifth in the revised classification.
The #23 Motul Autech Z (Katsumasa Chiyo/Mitsunori Takaboshi) was the best of the Nissans in sixth, even after Chiyo spun out during his opening stint. They finished ahead of ARTA’s Tomoki Nojiri and Matsushita, then Tsukakoshi and Koide who were classified in eighth.
The highest of GT500’s “block of three” non-Bridgestone users was the Dunlop-clad #64 Modulo Civic of Takuya Izawa and Okusa, in ninth, with the #3 Niterra Z of Sasaki and Atsushi Miyake in tenth.
Meanwhile, in GT300, the #65 LEON Pyramid Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Naoya Gamou and Togo Suganami picked up right where it left off for most of 2024. Despite a driver change in the off-season, the black Mercedes took the win after several lead changes due to wet conditions and incidents – including its own incident which decided the race with a bit of a sour feeling for ace driver Gamou.
Kataoka’s clash with Fujii at the quarter-distance mark threw GT300 up in the air. Suganami seized control by overtaking the #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport of Takuto Iguchi for second place on the road, which became the race lead once Kataoka had to serve his drive-through penalty.
There then emerged an outstanding battle for second in class between rookie Yuto Nomura in the new #18 UPGarage Mercedes-AMG, and Tsubasa Kondo in the new #666 seven x seven Porsche 911 GT3 R. 19-year-old Nomura did a fantastic job holding up to Kondo’s pressure, but Kondo eventually found a way to slip through into second place – and eventually the lead when the #65 LEON AMG came in for a driver change and fuel, but no tyres.
Nomura was then spun out by the #6 Uni-Robo Bluegrass Ferrari 296 GT3 of Yoshiaki Katayama while running in second place – and it was shortly afterwards that the penalised Hatsune Miku AMG made the call to switch to slick tyres once Nobuteru Taniguchi was aboard. Kondo followed him in and took wets, but Kiyoto Fujinami soon realised that the wet rubber was no longer effective and had to stop again for slicks.
Gamou in the LEON AMG had to follow suit, and with the Yokohama slicks of the #18 UPGarage AMG now in their optimal window, Takashi Kobayashi re-took the lead before the Safety Car was deployed.
One lap after the restart, Gamou put the pressure on Kobayashi and dove up the inside of Attwood Curve – only for Gamou to collide with Kobayashi and send the yellow Mercedes into the gravel. Gamou was given a five-second time penalty for the collision (a drive-through penalty notice was initially displayed in error) but he was able to build up the gap to the second-placed car enough to cover that delta and take the win.
Even after winning at his home race, Okayama native Gamou was visibly less than enthusiastic about how his race went down, saying: “The fact that I collided with car #18 is something I really regret, but I told myself that it was part of what happens in races and I kept on chasing and took the lead.
“The race development was very difficult. The teams’ decisions and the fact that Suganami was able to save the tyres from serious wear in his long run in the rainy first half, were great. Since this is my home ground my family and friends came out to cheer me on, and I am really glad we won.”
On the other hand, Suganami was pleased to reach the top step of the podium for the first time since rejoining LEON Racing in the off-season. In between, Suganami didn’t race in GT300 for most of 2022 and spent two difficult seasons at Tsuchiya Engineering.
“This was the first race since I came back to the team this season, so I am really very happy. The conditions at the start of the race were very difficult, but the Bridgestone tyre still performed very well, and the team set up the car so well that it was really fun to drive. But, after we won, Gamou-san didn’t seem very excited, so I want to run a race next time that will make us feel really happy,” he remarked.
It was Gamou’s eighth career GT300 win, and Suganami’s second.
Behind them, the #26 Anest Iwata Racing Lexus RC F GT3 of Igor Fraga and Hironobu Yasuda scored its best-ever finish, going from 21st on the grid to second place. A well-timed pit stop and excellent driving from Fraga and Yasuda put this comeback drive in motion.
This was Anest Iwata Racing’s first race since becoming a fully independent entry (though running this season with technical support from Gainer). Fraga earned his first GT300 podium to start his third season in SUPER GT, and Yasuda returned to the podium in his first race back after sitting out last season.
And the #56 Realize/Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R of João Paulo de Oliveira and Kohei Hirate finished third, on the strength of a late race sprint by Oliveira to climb up from sixth at the final restart. We won’t see Oliveira in SUPER GT until August, though, because his new Stock Car Pro programme in Brazil clashes with Fuji and Sepang.
The #4 Hatsune Miku AMG recovered to fourth after its penalty, finishing ahead of the #9 Pacific Idolm@ster NAC AMG (Ryohei Sakaguchi/Yusuke Tomibayashi) which quietly came home fifth, the best finish for Pacific Racing Team in three years!
Morio Nitta and Shinichi Takagi went from 19th to sixth in the #96 K-tunes RC F, and both JLOC Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2s finished in the points after paltry qualifying performances: The #87 Metalive Huracán (Kosuke Matsuura/Natsu Sakaguchi), from 26th to seventh, the #0 Venteny Huracán (Takashi Kogure/Yuya Motojima), from 15th to ninth, on either end of the #666 seven x seven Porsche.
A five-second time penalty for rough driving dropped the #2 Hyper Water GR86 (Yuui Tsutsumi/Hibiki Taira) from eighth to tenth but they still salvaged points after starting 22nd.
In 2025, points will be paid to the top 15 finishers, which meant points on the board for the #11 Gainer Z (Ryuichiro Tomita/Kazuki Oki), the #45 PONOS Ferrari (Kei Cozzolino/Takuro Shinohara), and the #61 Subaru BRZ of Iguchi and Hideki Yamauchi – despite Yamauchi getting spun by Shinohara on the final lap. Points also went to the new #60 Syntium LC500 (Hiroki Yoshimoto/Shunsuke Kohno) and the underdog #25 Hoppy GR Supra (Takamitsu Matsui/Kimiya Sato).
They would have gone to the #6 Uni-Robo 296 of Katayama and Roberto Merhi, but the car was disqualified from 13th for running a higher maximum boost pressure than prescribed in the Balance of Performance.
GT300’s only retirements were the #20 SHADE Racing GR86 (wheel hub failure) and #52 Green Brave GR Supra (accident damage in a collision with the #22 R’Qs AMG).
The Autobacs SUPER GT Series returns on Sunday, 4 May for the traditional Golden Week holiday race at Fuji Speedway – the first of two three-hour long-distance events on the calendar.
Images © GTA
