Led by standout performances from its two GT500 rookie drivers, Honda has locked out the front two rows and emerged as the clear favourites to win the Suzuka GT 300km Race on Sunday. The #17 Astemo HRC Prelude-GT of Koudai Tsukakoshi and Yuto Nomura will start first, after Nomura captured his first pole position in SUPER GT’s top category, becoming the youngest-ever GT500 polesitter in the series’ history.
It’s back-to-back pole positions for the new Honda HRC Prelude-GT, which the likes of Astemo Real Racing, Modulo Nakajima Racing, and ARTA Mugen with its two cars hope to parlay into another win.
The star in Q1 was Honda’s other GT500 newcomer, Igor Fraga, who’s just three weeks removed from his terrifying flip at Fuji Speedway in the 300km race. With a rebuilt #64 Modulo HRC Prelude-GT and zero Success Weight to slow it down, Fraga led the group of ten cars that advanced to Q2 with a time of 1:45.254, almost half a second faster than local hero Atsushi Miyake in the #24 Realize Corporation Nissan Z NISMO GT500.
Three Toyotas failed to make the cut including the top two in points, the #36 au TOM’S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi/Kenta Yamashita) and the #14 ENEOS X Prime GR Supra (Nirei Fukuzumi/Kazuya Oshima), which qualified 11th and 12th on heavy Success Weight. Also missing the cut was the #100 Stanley HRC Prelude-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino) which qualified last, capping off a terrible day for Stanley Team Kunimitsu.
Not only will Yamamoto and Makino start last after taking the Prelude’s first win at Fuji last time, but in practice, the car suffered an engine failure – an engine change completed between sessions means that the #100 Stanley Prelude will have to serve a five-second penalty stop after the green flag waves.
In their Q2 runs, the #64 Modulo Prelude appeared to have secured pole position when Riki Okusa set a 1:45.204, but a terrific final sector from Nomura elevated the cherry red #17 Astemo Prelude to the top spot with a best time of 1:45.129. Nomura, in just his fourth GT500 race, won the pole by less than a tenth of a second. With that, Nomura breaks the record as the youngest GT500 pole sitter at 20 years, 283 days – breaking the record last set by Ralf Schumacher, when he put one of the Team Goh McLaren F1 GTRs on pole in his JGTC debut back in 1996!
Okusa’s time put the #64 Modulo Prelude, the only GT500 car on Dunlop tyres, second on the grid ahead of the two ARTA Mugen cars on the second row. The #8 ARTA Mugen Prelude (Kakunoshin Ohta/Hiroki Otsu) edged out the #16 (Tomoki Nojiri/Ren Sato) by just 0.015 seconds in Q2, but one has to wonder how things could have gone if Sato, the quickest driver in practice this morning, didn’t overrun the entry to Spoon Curve on his first flying lap.
The best of the Nissans was the #12 TRS Impul with SDG Z (Kazuki Hiramine/Bertrand Baguette) starting fifth; Toyota’s top-qualifying car was the #19 WedsSport Bandoh GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi), the only Yokohama-clad GT500 car, in sixth.
Last year’s Suzuka winners, Katsumasa Chiyo and Mitsunori Takaboshi, will start eighth in their #23 Motul Niterra Z.
Through the first three races of 2026, the #9 Pacific NAC Umamusume BMW M4 GT3 EVO has been a fan favourite via its sponsorship from Cygames’ popular game series Umamusume: Pretty Derby, yet the results have shown that the new car has stumbled out of the gates. But at Suzuka, the #9 BMW has gracefully galloped to a surprising pole position via the combined efforts of Yuta Fujiwara in Q1, and pole winner Yusuke Tomibayashi in Q2.
It’s the first SUPER GT pole position for Pacific Racing Team, which has competed in the series since 2010, but has never started higher than second in the last 16 and a half seasons. It’s also the first GT300 pole for Tomibayashi, whose first GT300 podium came here in 2022.
20-year-old Fujiwara was impressive in his own right, finishing second in Q1 Group B behind the group-leading #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport of Takuto Iguchi. On the other side, the #777 D’station Aston Martin Vantage GT3 led Group A thanks to a great run from Tomonobu Fujii, to edge out the #30 apr Toyota GR86 of Hibiki Taira.
With these results, Hideki Yamauchi was seemingly the odds-on favourite to win the pole in the #61 Subaru, and he set a great benchmark with a 1:56.981. But Tomibayashi took it to another grade, setting a 1:56.547 to prance to provisional pole. When Charlie Fagg in the #777 D’station Vantage missed out by 0.004 seconds (1:56.551), it secured the pole for Tomibayashi and Pacific Racing Team.
The same combination of the BMW M4 GT3 and Michelin tyres has proven successful at Suzuka in recent years; Sunday’s race represents the best chance Pacific Racing Team has had at its first victory.
It’ll share the front row with Okayama winners Fujii and Fagg, whose D’station Vantage won here in 2024. The #61 Subaru will start third, next to the #60 Syntium LM corsa Lexus LC500 (Hiroki Yoshimoto/Shunsuke Kohno), a car that comes back to Suzuka after a devastating disqualification from last year’s race.
The #18 UpGarage Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO (Takashi Kobayashi/Kotaro Shimbara) starts fifth, next to last year’s winning car in GT300, the #7 CarGuy MKS Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo (Zak O’Sullivan/Reimei Ito).
Of the other GT300 title contenders, the #65 LEON Pyramid AMG (Naoya Gamou/Togo Suganami) starts eighth, the #52 Saitama Green Brave Toyota GR Supra (Hiroki Yoshida/Seita Nonaka) starts 13th after its win in Fuji, while the #56 Realize/Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R (João Paulo de Oliveira/Iori Kimura) will start 18th after it didn’t set a representative time in Q2.
Way down the order were the #2 Hyper Water INGING Toyota GR86 (Yuui Tsutsumi/Kazuhisa Urabe) in 24th, and the #31 apr Lexus LC500h (Kazuto Kotaka/Miki Koyama) in 26th, both cars missed out on a place in Q2. Also missing out was the #666 seven x seven Porsche 911 GT3 R, as debutant Taichi Watarai’s first qualifying run wasn’t enough to lift the Porsche out of the drop zone.
Sunday’s 52-lap race at Suzuka starts at 13:30 JST (local time); RACER+ and RACER Network will carry live coverage in the United States and Canada, with English commentary provided by Speed City Broadcasting’s Jonathan Green, and DSC’s very own RJ O’Connell.
Images © GTA
