A collision in the final minutes of the five-hour Super Taikyu Race in Autopolis handed the ST-X and overall victory to the #31 apr Lexus RC F GT3, their first win of the season.
Naoya Gamou, Rikuto Kobayashi, and Koki Saga drove the white and black Lexus alongside Toyota Motor Company test driver Ryuta Ukai, who filled in as the ‘A’ driver for Hiroaki Nagai. Ukai and Gamou’s quickest laps in Qualifying gave them the pole for Sunday’s race, by a razor-thin margin of just 0.032s (on aggregate!) over the #777 D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3.
From third on the grid, the #101 Hitotsuyama Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II took the lead on the first lap and held the top spot until the first round of pit stops, where the #31 Lexus took the lead for the first time. This was despite the fact that Saga to serve an early drive-through penalty as a concession for apr changing ‘A’ drivers before the start of the weekend.
Kobayashi held onto the lead and passed the baton to Ukai, but the #23 TKRI Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO (Daisuke Matsunaga/Tatsuya Kataoka/Shunji Okumoto/Yuhki Nakayama), which started fourth, took the lead with an hour and 46 minutes remaining. After half an hour, Nakayama gave way for young Okumoto to drive the final stint.
All was going well for Okumoto until, with three minutes left, he collided with the ST-5R class #88 Murakami Motors Mazda Roadster at turn 11. Both cars spun, and the #88 Roadster of Tatsuya Ota was stranded in the gravel, giving up the class lead. Okumoto was able to continue quickly, but the Stewards served Okumoto with a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact.
The #23 TKRI Mercedes-AMG took the chequered flag first, but after the drive-through was converted into a 30-second time penalty, the #31 apr Lexus was given the win by 8.4 seconds, and the #23 Mercedes-AMG dropped to third in the final classification.
Finishing in second was the #101 Hitotsuyama Audi (Kenji Suzuki/Sota Ogawa/James Pull/Anna Inotsume), and rounding out the four-car ST-X field was the #777 D’station Aston Martin (Satoshi Hoshino/Yuta Kamimura/Tomonobu Fujii) in fourth, just at the tail end of the lead lap after 148 laps of racing.
Despite the penalty, TKRI held onto its lead in the ST-X championship standings, and is now 17 points ahead of apr in second, and seven x seven Racing – which has now sat out the last two events – in third.
Fifth place overall and the ST-TCR class win went to the #97 M&K Racing Honda Civic FL5 TCR of Mitsuhiro Endo, Shinji Nakano, and Jack Young, which led its class for virtually the entire race. It was their second win of the season.
All in all, the race went quite well for Honda Civic TCRs – as the #271 Honda Civic TCR HRC Concept finished sixth overall as the top ST-Q class competitor. Hiroki Otsu, Yuto Nomura, and Shion Tsujimoto completed 139 laps in the debuting concept car, which is using Super Taikyu to test performance parts for future iterations of the Civic TCR.
Though, the #96 M&K Racing Civic TCR sustained a heavy crash, which took Thanasiwanat Phongsinnatchaachun out of the race. The Thai driver was able to walk away.
The #19 Birth Racing Project Cupra TCR (Takashi Kochiya/Takeshi Suehiro/Jiei Okuzumi/Takahisa Ohno) would take second in ST-TCR, followed by the #98 Waimarama Racing Hyundai Elantra N TCR (Shigeru ‘Kizuna’ Sato/Lee Jung Woo/Katsumasa Chiyo/Ryosuke Masumoto) in third. With no ST-Z (GT4) or ST-1 participation, these cars finished seventh and eighth overall.
Waimarama Racing holds on to a narrow 4.5-point lead in the ST-TCR championship standings, ahead of Birth Racing Project.
Okabe Jidosha Motorsports’ two Nissan Fairlady Z34s completed the overall top ten as they also finished 1-2 in the ST-3 class, led by the red #16 Z-car of Toru Tanaka, Hironobu Shimizu, Atsushi Miyake, and Hibiki Komatsu. They finished just 1.6 seconds ahead of the sister #15 Nissan (Shuji Maejima/Masaaki Nagashima/Tsubasa Mekaru/Seiya Motojima), while the #39 Tracy Sports with Delta Lexus RC 350 (Shinya Fujita/Takumi Sanada/Takashi Ito) retained its championship lead with a third-place finish.
In ST-2, the #225 KTMS Toyota GR Yaris of Riona Tomishita, Tokiya Suzuki, and Hibiki Taira took its second win of the season, overhauling the championship-leading #72 Nihon Automobile College Honda Civic Type R (Makoto Kanai/Tetsuya Yamano/Toshiya Nojima) for the lead. The NATS Civic would finish second in class, followed by the #13 Endless Sports GR Yaris (Masaya Hanazato/Reimei Ito/Mizuki Ishizaka/Hitoshi Okada) in third.
Endless Sports would still come away with a win in the ST-4 class, though; the #3 Toyota GR86 of Hiroyuki Saka, Togo Suganami, Ryo Ogawa, and Atsushi Shimatani won for the first time this season, followed by the #884 SHADE Racing GR86 (Masahiko Kageyama/Eijiro Shimizu/Shinnosuke Yamada).
With just one ST-4 race remaining, SHADE Racing has not yet clinched the series title, but with the #41 Tracy Sports with Delta GR86 (Hirotaka Ishii/Yusuke Tomibayashi/Shunsuke Ozaki) now 26 points behind with only 32 available in the season finale at Fuji, the #884 Toyota could clinch the title if it simply finishes the final race in November.
The #66 Over Drive Mazda Roadster RF (Kyosuke Inomata/Yuta Fujiwara/Kohei Tokumasu) collected third in class, ahead of the #41 Tracy Sports/Delta GR86 in fourth.
Meanwhile, this race was the penultimate round for the ST-5F and ST-5R classes, with the Okayama round serving as their season finale.
Murakami Motors was set to clinch the ST-5R title at Autopolis until the collision in the final minutes took Tatsuya Ota out of the lead, handing the victory to the #610 Koshido Racing Roadster of Motoharu Sato, Yusaku Shibata, Yasuji Asai, and Kengo Yamamoto. It was their first win of the year, and one that keeps the first-year team in title contention going into Okayama.
Behind them were the #27 Maple Hiroshima Racing Team Roadster (Haruhiko Sugino/Yuga Furutani/Takafumi Katsuki) in second place, and the #76 Progress Racing Roadster (Kazutaka Tokufuji/Kenji ‘Ishiken’ Ishikawa/Yuya Egi/Junpei Kato) in third. The #88 Muramo Roadster (Hiroyuki Murakami/Tatsuya Ota/Sena Kuronuma/Soichiro Yoshida) dropped to fifth after being able to take the chequered flag.
Murakami Motors has a 27-point lead over Koshido Racing going into the three-hour races at Okayama. But since it is the last race of their season, the championship points will be multiplied by 1.5, and 30 points will be paid to the class winner – meaning that Koshido Racing is still mathematically eligible for a major upset.
But there will be no such drama in the ST-5F class: Team Yamato has clinched the title after the chrome silver #67 Honda Fit3 RS of Ryohei Yasui, Shinya Uchiyama, and Ryo Mukumoto finished third in class.
It’s Team Yamato’s first-ever championship in the Super Taikyu Series, and it comes on the 60th anniversary of the team’s establishment in 1965. You’d have to go back to the early ’80s, when Team Yamato’s Civic SB-1 won the 1981 and 1983 Fuji “Minor Touring” Championship titles, to find their last major accolades.
Team NOPRO won the race – not with its usual Diesel Turbo Mazda2, but the petrol-powered #17 Mazda Demio DE, which Toshihiko Nogami’s squad has used on-and-off since its debut in 2012. Yoshihiro Kato, Misaki Konishi, Takashi Ohi, and Tatsuya Nojima won by just 13 seconds over the #4 Team Bride Fit3 RS (Yuya Ohta/Kaoru Arai/Takao Seto/Yoshikazu Sobu).
The Super Taikyu Series will return on 25-26 October for the Super Taikyu race in Okayama double-header.
Images © STO
