The new Nissan Z GT500 captured its first Autobacs SUPER GT Series pole position on Saturday, as the #23 Motul Autech Z of Tsugio Matsuda and Ronnie Quintarelli won the pole for Sunday’s Fujimaki Group Suzuka GT 450km Race.
Conditions were hot and partly cloudy for the beginning of qualifying, at 3:20 PM local time. Ambient temperatures clocked in at 31°C, and track temperatures rose to 40°C by the start of Q2. It was a beautiful late summer afternoon at the magnificent figure-eight circuit in Suzuka.
During the morning practice session, the #16 Red Bull Motul Mugen Honda NSX-GT of Toshiki Oyu set the fastest time. Oyu transitioned seamlessly into Q1 with a top time of 1’45.219, to put the Red Bull NSX through into Q2 after the chequered flag. Sena Sakaguchi in the #19 WedsSport Advan Toyota GR Supra was second, followed by Matsuda, the local hero from the nearby city of Kuwana, in the #23 Motul Z. These three drivers were all covered by 0.063 seconds.
Outside the top eight, a mistake from Sho Tsuboi on his final flying lap cost him and Giuliano Alesi a chance to advance to Q2. Their #36 au TOM’s GR Supra will line up 12th on the grid, behind the #37 KeePer TOM’s GR Supra of GT500 Championship leaders, Sacha Fenestraz and Ritomo Miyata, in 11th. The #14 Eneos X Prime GR Supra (Kazuya Oshima/Kenta Yamashita), second in the championship table, qualified down in 14th.
Suzuka 300km winners Katsumasa Chiyo and Mitsunori Takaboshi will start ninth in their #3 CraftSports Motul Z. Chiyo was hanging onto the eighth and final transfer position until the very end of Q1, when he was bumped out by the #39 Denso Kobelco SARD GR Supra of Yuhi Sekiguchi.
Neither the #3, #14, or #37 advanced into Q2 while carrying the “Stage 1” fuel flow restrictor (92.6 kilogrammes per hour).
Half an hour passed, and three Hondas, three Toyotas, and two Nissans advanced into Q2. This was another classic SUPER GT pole shootout where the final minute of the session determined the pole sitter, and for a time, it looked certain that it would be the #17 Astemo NSX-GT on pole position. Nobuharu Matsushita set a hot time of 1’45.349 with under a minute left on the clock, and when the chequered flag waved, he was still on provisional pole.
That was, until Quintarelli put together a lap that was three-tenths of a sector up through the penultimate sector. All he had to do was get a clean run through the Triangle and out of the final corner to secure the top spot on the grid on Sunday, and a crucial championship point to go along with it.
It had been a long time since Nissan, the flagship NISMO team, and the four-time champion Quintarelli had won a pole in SUPER GT. Their last pole position in GT500 was at the 2019 Fuji 500 Miles, over three years ago. Quintarelli described the feeling of returning to the top spot in qualifying, as being like emerging from a long, dark tunnel.
“I am really glad to have finally gotten through it,” said Quintarelli. “We had come to Suzuka with the determination to finish first in all the sessions, but it isn’t an easy task considering how fast all of the SUPER GT teams are. But I was able to run a perfect lap. Still, my margin of lead was a mere two-tenths of a second.”
“I just want to express my appreciation to the team, to Tsugio-san, to Michelin tyre, and everyone else. I also want to thank all the fans for the long wait!” It is Quintarelli’s 15th career GT500 pole position – only Yuji Tachikawa has won more premier class poles in JGTC/SUPER GT history.
More important than that milestone, or even the prospect of taking a fifth consecutive win at Suzuka for Nissan, Matsuda and Quintarelli have a great opportunity to re-enter the championship picture with a strong result on Sunday.
At their “home circuit”, Honda will have a strong contender for victory on the front row as the #17 Astemo NSX-GT of Matsushita and Koudai Tsukakoshi finished second in qualifying.
In May, Astemo Real Racing brought an end to a painful “Suzuka curse”, with their first ever SUPER GT podium at the 5.807 kilometre circuit. Three months later, and Katsutomo Kaneishi’s team has a great chance to finally get their first Suzuka win tomorrow.
And with Ukyo Sasahara managing third in Q2 following Oyu’s top time in Q1, Team Red Bull Mugen and their tyre partners at Dunlop showed signs of improvement after what has been a torrid first half of the season.
A three-race pole streak for TGR Team WedsSport Bandoh, and a six-race streak for Toyota, ended as Suzuka course record holder Yuji Kunimoto managed fourth-fastest in Q2 aboard the WedsSport Supra.
Fifth-fastest was the #38 ZENT Cerumo GR Supra (Yuji Tachikawa/Hiroaki Ishiura), followed by the #24 Realize Corporation Advan Z (Daiki Sasaki/Kohei Hirate) in sixth. The #39 Denso GR Supra of Sekiguchi and Yuichi Nakayama qualified seventh, ahead of the #100 Stanley NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino), in eighth.
In the GT300 class, the #10 TanaX Gainer Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 of Ryuichiro Tomita, Riki Okusa, and Yusuke Shiotsu set the fastest time, just like they did during qualifying for the Suzuka 300km – before they were excluded due to a technical infringement.
This time, however, the #10 Gainer crew and their impressive rookie driver Okusa got to keep the pole position! But not before a closely-fought battle just to advance out of the Q1 group stages into the 16-car Q2 field.
In Group A, there were two big surprises below the cut line. The first, was the returning #25 Hoppy Schatz Toyota GR Supra (Takamitsu Matsui/Seita Nonaka), rebuilt and upgraded since a testing accident last month forced them to miss the previous Fuji 100 Lap Race. After all of their struggles, Matsui put together a lap that was just 0.009 seconds from reaching the top eight in the group – bumped out at the chequered flag.
Matsui and Nonaka will start 17th, ahead of the #65 LEON Pyramid Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Naoya Gamou/Takuro Shinohara) in 19th, and then the other big surprise: The #7 Studie BMW M4 GT3 (Seiji Ara/Augusto Farfus/Tsubasa Kondo), the dominant car from the Suzuka 300km in May, all the way down in 23rd starting position. Whether it was due to BoP changes since the last Suzuka round, or the 63kg of Success Weight, the Studie M4 just didn’t have the speed to make it to Q2 with Ara at the helm.
Rookie Iori Kimura was fastest in Group A aboard the #55 ARTA Honda NSX GT3, and in Group B, Kimiya Sato led the way in the #244 Hachi-Ichi GR Supra for Max Racing. Tomita was sixth-fastest in Group B, sending the #10 TanaX GT-R into Q2. Meanwhile, their sister car, the #11 Gainer TanaX GT-R (Hironobu Yasuda/Keishi Ishikawa) was unable to advance to Q2, and will start 18th.
Also in Group B, the #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi), laden with 89kg of Success Weight, did not advance to Q2 and will start 22nd – their worst qualifying result of the season.
In Q2, the red and white Hachi-Ichi GR Supra proved to be a force in the fight for pole position – especially with the outstanding young talent Atsushi Miyake at the wheel. With three minutes and 20 seconds left, Miyake set an outstanding benchmark with a time of 1’56.995. It was a tough act to follow – but Okusa in the grey and white GT-R had an answer. In the third sector alone he clawed back a half-second deficit with the brawn of the Nissan’s twin-turbo V6 engine. He followed up the fastest third sector with a perfect fourth sector to snatch the pole position by just 0.054 seconds.
The 22-year-old would have started on pole at Suzuka in May, had his car not been excluded after qualifying for violating the minimum ground clearance. This time, the TanaX GT-R passed inspection, and Okusa could finally celebrate his first career pole position in just his fifth race.
“Because of what happened last time, I came here with a feeling that we could win pole position,” Okusa said. “And since I had also said that we would get this pole when I appeared as a guest on the J SPORTS programme GTV, I am really happy that I am now able to hold my head high in front of everyone today as the pole winner.”
What role will third driver Shiotsu have alongside Tomita and Okusa in tomorrow’s race is to be determined. As with any semi-endurance or endurance race in SUPER GT, it’s not necessary to use all three drivers during the race.
A second-place qualifying effort for Miyake gives Max Racing a front-row start tomorrow. It’s been an emotional season so far, following the death of team founder Tsuyoshi Oono in the off-season – which some feared would lead to the team’s demise. They were heartbroken after an incident with a GT500 car knocked them out of the points at the Suzuka 300km in May, but the Hachi-Ichi GR Supra shouldn’t be overlooked as a contender for the victory tomorrow – one year after their maiden victory, also at Suzuka.
Qualifying third was the #88 Weibo Primez Lamborghini Huracán GT3 (Takashi Kogure/Yuya Motojima), their best qualifying result of the season. They were ahead of the championship-leading #56 Realize/Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R (Kiyoto Fujinami/João Paulo de Oliveira), who managed an extraordinary fourth place despite carrying the maximum 100kg of Success Ballast for the weekend.
The #4 Goodsmile Hatsune Miku AMG (Nobuteru Taniguchi/Tatsuya Kataoka) qualified fifth after setting the fastest time in practice earlier in the morning, followed by the #20 SHADE Racing GR86 GT (Katsuyuki Hiranaka/Eijiro Shimizu/Shinnosuke Yamada), with their best grid position of their maiden season thus far.
The two customer NSXes will share the fourth row, led by the #18 UPGarage NSX GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi/Kakunoshin Ohta) ahead of the #55 ARTA NSX GT3 (Hideki Mutoh/Iori Kimura). The #87 Bamboo Airways Lamborghini GT3 (Kosuke Matsuura/Natsu Sakaguchi) and the #6 Team LeMans Audi R8 LMS (Yoshiaki Katayama/Roberto Merhi) complete the top ten of the grid.
There has also been a last-minute driver change in advance of this weekend’s race: Yuta Kamimura will replace gentleman driver Hiroaki Nagai aboard the the #30 apr GR86 GT. Kamimura made a one-off SUPER GT debut with apr in last year’s Fuji Golden Week race. The 27-year-old is best known for his successes in GT World Challenge Asia, Super Taikyu, and Porsche Carrera Cup Japan.
Tomorrow’s race is 77 laps long, with two compulsory pit stops for fuel, but the strategic options for tyre and driver changes are wide open as they were at Fuji a few weeks ago. Expect to enjoy a classic when the green flag waves at 14:30 JST (local time) / 6:30 BST / 7:30 CEST / 1:30 EDT!
Images © GTA
