【SUPER GT Round 7 / Chang】

D’station ADVAN GT-R takes second in inaugural Thailand round.
Yokohama shoed cars sweep GT300 podium, again.

SUPER GT Round 7

Date	October 4-5, 2014
Venue	Chang International Circuit
Weather	Fine
Surface	Dry
Race Lap	66Laps (1Lap = 4,554ｍ)

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The Super GT series had regularly visited Malaysia as the once a year overseas event until last year. But it has been now dropped from the 2014 calendar and replaced with a race in Thailand: Buriram United Super GT Race at Chang International Circuit, the seventh round of the series held on October 4-5.

The newly built 4.554km race track is laid on a relatively flat ground and has a mix of a couple of long straightaways and a technical infield section. The pavement has a relatively low coefficient of friction but all tire manufacturers had no previous experience on this circuit, so it was a level playing field for the tire suppliers, including Yokohama.

The qualifying session was held on Saturday afternoon, as usual, and eight Yokohama shoed GT300 cars made their way into Q2. Lucas Ordonez in B-Max NDDP GT-R became the fastest Yokohama driver in Q2 by setting 1’34”268 and was ranked second in the class, followed by Jorg Muller in Studie BMW Z4 in third.

In the GT500 class, Michael Krumm at the wheel of D’station ADVAN GT-R set the fastest time in Q1, 1’24”926, and took an interim pole position. WedsSport ADVAN RC F, driven by Yuhi Sekiguchi, also advanced into Q2, as the Japanese set the seventh fastest time in Q1, thus the two Yokohama equipped GT500 cars moved into the showdown over the pole position.

At the end of the Q2, Daiki Sasaki who drove D’station ADVAN GT-R secured the front row, as he was the second fastest with 1’24”739, while Juichi Wakisaka in WedsSport ADVAN RC F was ranked eighth.

The sky was overcast with thin clouds on Sunday, with the air/surface temperatures at 34/52 degrees Celsius when the 66 lap race got underway at 3 p.m. The pole sitting S Road Mola GT-R made a clean start but Krumm in D’station ADVAN GT-R followed closely. The leading two GT-Rs gradually pulled away from the rest of the field, fighting each other for the top slot. On the other hand, Sekiguchi in WedsSport ADVAN RC F also had some close battles with a couple of Honda NSXs in the group that was contending for fifth.

Things had gone smoothly for Krumm until his car suddenly had a gear shift problem on Lap 31. Although the glitch soon disappeared, the German had to slow down for a while and dropped down to fourth. And on the next lap, he came in to the pit to change to Sasaki and the team replaced all four tires with the new ones during the stop.

Sekiguchi in WedsSport ADVAN RC F stayed out for two more lap before coming in for the mandatory stop and then Wakisaka rejoined the race with fresh tires on all four corners.

D’station ADVAN GT-R overtook Motul Autech GT-R on Lap 39 and was running in fifth two laps later when all cars had completed their stops. This was because a couple of opponents chose not to replace tires during their stop to gain some seconds in the pit. However, Sasaki’s pace was clearly better than theirs and he was already in third on Lap 52. Then, he managed to reduce the 7 second gap with KeePer Tom’s RC F, the car in second at that time, down to a half second in only seven laps and passed the KeePer backed car on Lap 60 to move up to second.

Setting 1’25”441, which was the fastest lap of the race, on his way, Sasaki tried to catch the eventual winner, Petronas Tom’s RC F, but the remaining laps were not enough for him to make it happen. So D’station ADVAN GT-R finished the race in second, which meant the crew got on the podium for the first time this season. At the same time, this was the first podium finish by a Yokohama shoed GT 500 car in 2014.

Wakisaka in WedsSport ADVAN RC F was also closing the gap with Weider Modulo NSX Concept-GT and finished in sixth less than two seconds behind the Honda.

In the GT300 class, the pole sitting iMobile AAS Porsche, which was run by a local team in Thailand and made the first appearance in the series, led the early stage of the race, making the most of its incredible speed on the straightaways. The gap between the Porsche and B-Max NDDP GT-R with Kazuki Hoshino at the wheel once opened up to 11 seconds but then Hoshino began to reduce it gradually because the Porsche’s tires – not supplied by Yokohama – evidently degraded in the second half of its first stint. When the gap came down to less than five seconds, iMobile AAS Porsche made a pit stop and this gave Hoshino the position of interim leader.

He handed the car to Ordonez on Lap 30 and, when all GT300 cars had done their pit stops, the Spaniard found himself still in second. On Lap 48, however, the race leading Porsche was forced to make unscheduled pit stop due to a tire burst. Because of this, Ordonez automatically took over the lead position but now he was threatened his position by Muller in Studie BMW Z4 which was rapidly closing in.

The staring driver of Studie BMW Z4, Seiji Ara, lost the third position to Gainer Rn-Sport SLS on Lap 4 but he had difficulty to regain the position. So the Japanese suggested the team to make a pit stop earlier and did so on Lap 23. At the end of the day, his judgment paid off and gave his teammate a chance to attack the race leading B-Max NDDP GT-R for the final laps.

Muller put heavy pressure on Ordonez but the GT-R driver never made the slightest mistake. When the checkered flag fell, only these two cars in the class completed 61 laps and the gap between them was just 0.862 seconds. This was the first victory for the Hoshino/Ordonez pair in the Super GT.

The fight for the remaining place on the podium was equally intense. When Nobuteru Taniguchi was handed Goodsmile Hatsune Miku Z4 from Tatsuya Kataoka, the car was in fifth but Taniguchi passed P.MU Exe Aston Martin on Lap 41. Then he rapidly reduced the gap with Akira Iida in TWS LM Corsa BMW Z4, the winner of the previous round. As they were driving identical cars, overtaking was extremely difficult but, on Lap 56, Taniguchi managed to get ahead of Iida’s car, partly because the latter’s Z4 began to have excessive brake wear, and Goodsmile Hatsune Miku Z4 took the third place at the end of the race. This meant Yokohama shoed cars swept the podium for the third time this season and for the second consecutive event.

As for the championship situation after the race, Studie BMW Z4 moves up to joint-second with Gainer Dixcel SLS, while Goodsmile Hatsune Miku Z4 is still ahead of them by nine points. So the GT300 team championship will probably be decided between them in the next and final round at Motegi.