Since the end of the summer break, the Honda HRC Prelude-GT has won the last three Autobacs SUPER GT Series races and taken the last three – now, make it four – pole positions, as of today. Yet again, Honda has locked out the front row in GT500, and yet again, it’s Modulo Nakajima Racing and Astemo Real Racing sharing the front row.
The Dunlop-clad #64 Modulo HRC Prelude-GT of Riki Okusa and Igor Fraga won the pole for Sunday’s Autopolis GT 3 Hour Race, leading both legs of knockout qualifying along the way.
First, Fraga led Q1 with a 1:32.550, putting him four-tenths of a second ahead of the next-fastest car – another Honda, the #100 Stanley Prelude-GT of Naoki Yamamoto. Four of Honda’s five cars advanced to Q2 with the exception of the #8 ARTA Mugen Prelude-GT, as Hiroki Otsu missed the top-10 cut line by 0.008 seconds.
Then, with a little tow from rookie Yuto Nomura, Okusa led Q2 with a 1:32.414, putting him on pole for the second time in a row – however, the last three races at Autopolis have been won from 10th or lower in GT500, and the #64 Modulo Prelude-GT has still yet to finish better than 12th in a race this season.
The #17 Astemo Prelude-GT of Koudai Tsukakoshi and Yuto Nomura, who now sit second in the GT500 championship standings after their win at Sugo, will start second as Nomura set a 1:32.799 in Q2.
Completing the top three was the #19 WedsSport Bandoh Toyota GR Supra GT500 (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi), the only GT500 car on Yokohama tyres. Sakaguchi had just recovered from an eye injury that kept him out of the most recent Super Formula races at Fuji a week ago.
Yamamoto and Tadasuke Makino will start fourth in the #100 Stanley Prelude-GT, and the #12 TRS Impul with SDG Nissan Z NISMO GT500 (Kazuki Hiramine/Bertrand Baguette) will start fifth as the highest-ranked Nissan, alongside the No. #38 KeePer Cerumo GR Supra (Toshiki Oyu/Rikuto Kobayashi).
Championship leaders Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita will start eighth in the #36 au TOM’S GR Supra, sharing the fourth row with the #16 ARTA Mugen Prelude-GT (Tomoki Nojiri/Ren Sato) which suffered an accident late in the morning’s Free Practice session but was repaired in time to make a run in Qualifying.
Likewise, in GT300, the #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport of Takuto Iguchi and Hideki Yamauchi led both Q1 and Q2 to qualify on pole position for the second time this year.
Iguchi put the flat-six powered BRZ on top of Q1 Group A with a 1:44.122, setting co-driver Yamauchi up for a run at the pole in Q2. With plenty of time left in the final ten-minute session, GT300’s qualifying king went four-tenths quicker than the field with a 1:42.677, and Yamauchi extended his all-time record with his 18th career pole position.
GTA-GT300 cars locked out the top five places on the grid ahead of their mostly-European GT3 counterparts. The #2 Hyper Water INGING Toyota GR86 (Yuui Tsutsumi/Kazuhisa Urabe) finished second in Q2, but will start fourth after Urabe and the #2 Toyota were given a two-place grid penalty for impeding another car in their Q1 group.
That moves the #52 Saitama Green Brave Toyota GR Supra, driven by Kumamoto Prefecture’s own Hiroki Yoshida and co-driver Seita Nonaka, up to second on the grid. It also promotes the #25 Hoppy Schatz GR Supra (Takamitsu Matsui/Ryota Horachi) from fourth to third, by far the best result this year for Hoppy Team Tsuchiya.
Completing the GTA-GT300 lockout was the #60 Syntium LM corsa Lexus LC500 (Hiroki Yoshimoto/Shunsuke Kohno), the winner last round at Sugo.
In sixth was the #7 CarGuy MKS Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo (Zak O’Sullivan/Kiyoshi Umegaki/Reimei Ito), the third-place car in the championship, followed by the #96 K-tunes Lexus RC F GT3 (Morio Nitta/Shinichi Takagi), the #65 LEON Pyramid Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO (Naoya Gamou/Togo Suganami/Haruki Kurosawa), the #666 seven x seven Porsche 911 GT3 R (Sven Müller/Taichi Watarai), and the #87 Open House Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 (Yuya Motojima/Kosuke Matsuura/Kohta Kawaai).
The championship-leading #56 Kondo Racing Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 (João Paulo de Oliveira/Iori Kimura) starts in 11th, while the second-ranked #777 D’station Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo (Tomonobu Fujii/Charlie Fagg) missed the cut for Q2 and will start down in 19th.
The Autopolis GT 3 Hours Race starts Sunday at 1:10 PM JST (local time). In North America, RACER Network and RACER+ will have live English-language coverage with DSC’s RJ O’Connell on commentary alongside Jonathan Green and Jon Massengale.
Images © GTA
