【SUPER GT Round 8 / Motegi】

Yokohama shoed Goodsmile Hatsune Miku Z4 takes third.
The result gives Taniguchi/Kataoka pair GT300 drivers’ title crown.

SUPER GT Round 8

Date	November 15-16, 2014
Venue	Twinring Motegi
Weather	Fine
Surface	Dry
Race Lap	53Laps (1Lap = 4,801m)

• >>Report
• >>Result

The year of exciting races goes by so fast. The eighth and final round of the 2014 Super GT series, Motegi GT 250km Race, was held at Twin Ring Motegi in Tochigi Prefecture on November 15-16. The race was shorter by 50km than the other normal rounds and all cars ran without any handicap weight on board for this final round. Nobuteru Taniguchi/Tatsuya Kataoka pair in Goodsmile Hatsune Miku Z4 finished the race in third in the GT300 class and won the drivers’ championship, becoming the first Yokohama equipped title winner in two years.

Under a bright blue sky on Saturday afternoon, the qualifying session began with Q1 for the GT300 cars and nine Yokohama shoed cars made their way to Q2. Morio Nitta in OGT Panasonic Prius secured the second grid by setting 1’47”977 in Q2 and this was the highest place among the Yokohama drivers. The drivers’ championship leader by nine points, Taniguchi, set the third fastest time in the session, which was promising for his hope of winning the title on Sunday.

In the qualifying session for the GT500 cars, Yuhi Sekiguchi gave a striking performance in Q1 to place WedsSports ADVAN RC F in third by setting 1’39”351. In Q2, Juichi Wakisaka clocked 1’39”711 which was the seventh fastest in the session and got the highest grid position of the season for the WedsSports backed car.

D’station ADVAN GT-R with Michael Krumm at the wheel was among the first to begin qualifying attempts in Q1. He was going to complete a clear flying lap and a very good qualifying time was expected, until the red flag was shown just after five minutes into the session due to a halted car on the track. This meant the German’s first qualifying lap was nullified and, to make matters worse, a transmission problem occurred on his car soon after the session resumed. As a result, he couldn’t set any proper qualifying lap times, forcing the car to start the race from the 14th and last grid.

Fine autumn weather stayed for Sunday, with air/surface temperatures at 16/23 degrees Celsius, so the conditions were pretty good not only for the teams but also for the spectators at Motegi. The 53 lap race got underway at 1 p.m. Starting from the seventh grid, Sekiguchi in WedsSport ADVAN RC F at the start did a spirited drive which brought him up to as high as second at one time.

After the driver change on Lap 32, Wakisaka also stayed in the leading group and closely fought with the top contenders, which delighted the huge crowd of spectators. This was made possible by the team’s decision not to replace the tires at the pit stop. The shorter pit stop time meant a better track position after the stop. Thus WedsSports ADVAN RC F finished the race in sixth and Wakisaka/Sekiguchi pair concluded the season with their best result.

Despite starting from the bottom of the grids, the starting driver of D’station ADVAN GT-R, Daiki Sasaki, pushed very hard and moved up through the field, thanks to the tires which were suited to the track conditions on Sunday. After reaching as high as third at one time, he changed to Krumm on Lap 27. The German also drove in a really good pace and eventually finished the race in fourth, which was almost miraculous from the 14th grid. After taking the second place in the previous Thailand round, Krumm/Sasaki pair scored valuable results in the season’s final two races and they were ranked in tenth in the drivers’ championship.

In the GT300 class, Kataoka in Goodsmile Hatsune Miku Z4 started the race from the third grid and successfully made an early move to pass Nitta in OGT Panasonic Prius at Turn 4 on the opening lap. But the Prius driver closely followed Kataoka, so they had a fierce battle for third for a while. The situation changed on Lap 17 when Nitta made early pit stop to hand the car to Koki Saga. In this stop, the team didn’t replace any tire on OGT Panasonic Prius. Then Kataoka came in to the pit ten laps later and his team change all four tires before sending the car back on the track. Because of the difference in the tire strategies, Taniguchi found himself running in third when he resumed racing in the Z4.

When all cars had made their mandatory driver change, Taniguchi was still in third. Keeping this position until the finish would give Taniguchi and Kataoka the drivers’ championship title but now Audi R8 LMS with Tomonobu Fujii at the wheel was rapidly closing the gap from behind. The Audi team had replaced only two rear tires and gained a few positions during the pit stop. Taniguchi faced intense pressure because, if he gave way to Fujii, the championship would be lost. But the veteran never made a mistake and fended off the Audi driver’s chase. Thus, Goodsmile Hatsune Miku Z4 finished the race in third and Taniguchi/Kataoka pair won the title for the second time for each of them.

OGT Panasonic Prius came in second and made its second podium finish of the season. With this result, Nitta/Saga pair bettered their championship position to seventh, followed by Haruki Kurosawa who finished the race in sixth in Leon SLS. Starting from the 14th grid, Studie BMW Z4 made big strides to end the race in seventh and the crew, Jorg Muller and Seiji Ara, completed the season in third in the championship, while the eighth place finisher of the race, Kazuki Hoshino/Lucas Ordonez pair in B-Max NDDP GT-R, was ranked in fourth. So the six cars among the GT300 drivers’ championship’s top 10 finishers were equipped by Yokohama Tire this year.