Within the last week there have been a handful of major penalties handed down after the Autobacs SUPER GT Series three-hour race in Autopolis.
On Friday, the #666 seven x seven Porsche 911 GT3 R (Sven Müller/Taichi Watarai) and JLOC’s flagship #88 Venteny Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 (Takashi Kogure/Daniil Kvyat) were disqualified from the race for failing to complete their two mandatory full-service pit stops under green flag conditions. The #666 and #88 originally finished second and fourth, then were demoted to 11th and 12th with both cars receiving 100-second post-race penalties for the infringements.
However, upon a check-back on the supplementary regulations for the race, the GTA’s stewards have elected to disqualify both cars, moving the rest of the field behind them up two positions.
The biggest winner of this decision is the #56 Realize/Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R of João Paulo de Oliveira and Iori Kimura, which moves up from 14th to 12th in the revised GT300 classification, and gains two additional points to stretch their lead in the championship to 17 points over CarGuy MKS Racing’s Zak O’Sullivan – who won’t race at Motegi – and 20 points over a trio of contenders who all need a miracle to take the championship to the final day.
Kondo Racing’s #56 Nissan GT-R can clinch the title in Race 1 on Saturday 7 November (officially titled as “Round 3” due to its status as the make-up race for Sepang) with a win if none of the #2 Hyper Water GR86, #7 CarGuy Ferrari, and #65 LEON Pyramid AMG finishes second.
D’station Racing is one of the teams that is still on the fringes of title contention, but on Monday, the GTA handed down a weekend ban to its veteran driver Tomonobu Fujii for what was deemed to be deliberate contact with the #7 CarGuy Ferrari after the chequered flag in Autopolis.
The contact at turn one, which sent the aforementioned O’Sullivan spinning around only seconds after both cars finished the race, resulted in a two-lap penalty for the #777 D’station Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo which dropped Fujii and Charlie Fagg from ninth to 22th after the race, then up to 20th after the disqualifications of the #666 and #88 cars.
However, Fujii was given a 10-point demerit under SUPER GT’s Driving Moral Hazard Prevention System for “an act of retaliation […] that portrays malicious and violent behaviour”, putting him at the threshold to receive an event ban. It’s the first time ever that a driver has accrued enough penalty points in one incident to put them over the limit for a race ban, and the first time a driver has earned enough penalty points for a race ban since Hisashi Wada was parked from the 2017 Fuji Golden Week race.
Fujii, one of the longest-tenured SUPER GT racers to have never won a series championship – and it should be said, not a driver with a history of malicious driving – will now have to sit on the sidelines at Motegi and wait at least another year for his chance.
D’station Racing has appointed two-time GT300 race winner Tsubasa Kondo to be his replacement for the Motegi Grand Final weekend. Fagg, meanwhile, sits 25 points out of first place going into the doubleheader.
AUTOPOLIS 3H REVISED GT300 RESULTS >>>
Images © GTA
