The #38 KeePer Cerumo Toyota GR Supra of Toshiki Oyu and Hiroaki Ishiura will start on pole position for tomorrow’s SUPER GT Motegi GT 300km Race: Grand Final, after Oyu took his third career pole position and a bonus point towards their bid for the GT500 title.
They’ll share an all-Toyota front row with championship leaders Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita, who qualified second in their #1 au TOM’S GR Supra.
Yamashita posted the fastest time in GT500 Q1 with a 1:35.685, while Ishiura went third-fastest in his final GT500 time attack. But when it came time for Q2, Oyu wouldn’t be denied, taking provisional pole with a 1:35.796, then improving to a 1:35.768 to put the #38 KeePer GR Supra in the top spot. Tsuboi was a close second in the #1 car, with a 1:35.943.
Oyu thought of his co-driver for inspiration for his pole-winning time attack, saying: “I wanted to give something special to Ishiura-san, who will be retiring from GT500 racing as of this season. When Ishiura got us through Q1, I was so happy it virtually brought tears to my eyes. Then, by successfully getting pole position, I thought it was great to know that we will be starting Ishiura’s final race from the very front of the grid. Since we are also in competition for the season title, it is also good that we will be getting one more point for winning pole position.”
Tsuboi and Yamashita will only need to finish where they started, in second, or win the race to clinch the GT500 Championship in Sunday’s 63-lap, 300-kilometre finale.
In contrast, the remaining Toyotas, including the three others that still had a mathematical chance to win the championship, were all eliminated in Q1. Not helped when he spun during the preparation laps, Kazuya Oshima couldn’t get a clean lap in and only qualified 13th in the #14 Eneos X Prime GR Supra, not where he and Nirei Fukuzumi wished to start after setting the fastest time during Practice earlier in the day.
The #39 Denso Kobelco SARD GR Supra (Yuhi Sekiguchi/Sacha Fenestraz) and the #37 Deloitte TOM’S GR Supra (Ukyo Sasahara/Giuliano Alesi) also missed the cut with Fenestraz in 12th and Sasahara in 14th.
Behind the Toyota front row, all four Nissan Z NISMO GT500s locked out the second and third rows; the #23 Motul Autech Z (Katsumasa Chiyo/Mitsunori Takaboshi) will lead them from third on the grid, ahead of the #12 TRS Impul with SDG Z (Kazuki Hiramine/Bertrand Baguette), the #3 Niterra Motul Z (Daiki Sasaki/Atsushi Miyake), and the #24 Realize Corporation Advan Z (Tsugio Matsuda/Teppei Natori).
Four Hondas also advanced to Q2 and will make up rows four and five, led by the #100 Stanley Honda Civic Type R-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino), which came into the weekend running third in points and will start seventh tomorrow.
In their last GT500 qualifying runs during Q2, Tsugio Matsuda (#24 Realize Z) was sixth-fastest, four places ahead of Takuya Izawa (#64 Modulo Civic Type R-GT) in tenth.
On the GT300 side, the #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport of Takuto Iguchi and Hideki Yamauchi has released its shackles and taken pole position in dominant fashion, with Yamauchi collecting his GT300 record-extending 16th career pole and 15th for Subaru.
Yamauchi’s pole-winning lap of 1:45.192 approached lap record pace and was over a second clear of the second-place #5 Mach Syaken/Air Buster MC86 (Yusuke Shiotsu/Iori Kimura) that qualified in second.
Sunday’s race will be the last for Subaru’s EJ20 flat-4 engine in the BRZ GT300; the #61 Subaru also led Practice earlier in the day, and Iguchi was by far the quickest driver in his Q1 group.
“Things were going well for us from the morning’s Practice, and the car’s balance and the tyres that Dunlop prepared for us were really great, so it felt very good to drive,” said Yamauchi. “I am really full of gratitude to the team, to Subaru, STI, and the people at Dunlop for this pole position.”
Starting on the second row will be the #52 Saitama Green Brave Toyota GR Supra (Hiroki Yoshida/Seita Nonaka) and the #56 Realize/Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R NISMO GT3 (João Paulo de Oliveira/Kohei Hirate) in third and fourth. Both teams are eligible to win the GT300 Championship – but Hirate can clinch the GT300 Drivers’ Championship if he and Oliveira win the race.
Other outside championship contenders include the #18 Upgarage Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi/Yuto Nomura) in fifth, the #4 Goodsmile Hatsune Miku AMG (Nobuteru Taniguchi/Tatsuya Kataoka) in sixth, and the #666 seven x seven Porsche 911 GT3 R (Harry King/Kiyoto Fujinami) in seventh.
The #7 CarGuy MKS Ferrari 296 GT3 (Zak O’Sullivan/Rikuto Kobayashi) qualified tenth, but will start ninth after the #0 Venteny Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 (Takashi Kogure/Yuya Motojima) moves down from eighth to 12th on the grid as a consequence of Motojima’s Driving Moral Hazard Penalty points.
Championship leaders Naoya Gamou and Togo Suganami will start a lowly 14th in the #65 LEON Pyramid AMG, right next to the #2 Hyper Water INGING Toyota GR86 (Yuui Tsutsumi/Hibiki Taira) in 13th, and three places ahead of the #777 D’station Aston Martin Vantage GT3 (Tomonobu Fujii/Charlie Fagg) in 17th.
Feature image © Toyota
