On-track action for the 50th running of the Suzuka 1000km began on a rainy Friday morning, where the #7 Absolute Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R recorded the fastest time in what is effectively the first free practice session of the weekend – though officially Paid Test Session 1.
In any event, the track was still wet at the start of the first 60-minute session, with on-and-off precipitation throughout. Local hero Atsushi Miyake was the first to enter the course in the #500 Team 5Zigen Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3, and all 30 cars would take part despite the track conditions.
15 minutes in, DTM champion Ayhancan Güven went to ‘P1’ in the Bosch-sponsored #7 Absolute Porsche, setting a 2:11.077. While one Porsche went to the top, the #93 Ziggo Sport Tempesta Racing Porsche of Jonathan Hui suffered a mechanical issue, stopped on the start/finish straight, and brought out a brief Full Course Yellow. The Tempesta crew was limited to just five laps.
As the session continued, Max Hesse in the #89 Team KRC BMW M4 GT3 EVO (2:11.594) and Maxime Martin in the #77 Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO (2:11.474) made improvements to climb to third and second place on the leaderboard respectively.
But Guven’s lap for Absolute Racing was still nearly four-tenths quicker than the field, with Martin holding onto second for Craft-Bamboo, and Hesse in third for Team KRC.
The #64 Miedecke Motorsport by Team MPC Ford Mustang GT3 Evo got up to speed quickly, as Dennis Olsen set a 2:11.703 to go fourth-quickest.
Craft-Bamboo put both of its cars in the top five as Kevin Tse, one of the team’s Bronze drivers, set a 2:11.742 to put the Pro-Am #28 Mercedes-AMG in fifth place, best of the six-car category.
The #86 High Class Racing Porsche (Joel Sturm, 2:11.744) was sixth-quickest and second in the Bronze class behind the #89 KRC BMW, followed by a quartet of Japanese teams: The #96 K-tunes Racing Lexus RC F GT3 (Sena Sakaguchi, 2:11.765) in seventh, the #9 Bingo Racing with LM corsa Porsche (Ukyo Sasahara, 2:12.065) in eighth, the #555 Maezawa Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo (Alessio Rovera, 2:12.106) in ninth, and the #45 PONOS Racing Ferrari (Tadasuke Makino, 2:12.189) in tenth.
Of note, the #8 AO by Absolute Racing Porsche turned 18 laps but set no representative times according to timing and scoring.
Practice resumes at 12:10 PM this afternoon with the second Paid Test Session.
Images © SRO Motorsports Group / Gruppe C Photography
