【SUPER GT Round 1 / Okayama】

Goodsmile Hatsune Miku AMG wins from second grid.
WedsSport ADVAN LC500 extends its consecutive point finish record to 19.

SUPER GT Round 1

Date	2017/04/08-09
Venue	Okayama Int’l Circuit
Weather	Cloudy
Surface	Dry
Race Lap	81Laps (1Lap = 3,703ｍ)

• >>Report
• >>Result

Like most years, the opening round of the 2017 Super GT Series was held at Okayama International Circuit.

One of the major topics this season is that Motul Mugen NSX-GT, driven by Hideki Mutoh and Daisuke Nakajima, has become a new addition to the Yokohama squad in GT500. With WedsSport ADVAN LC500 (Yuhi Sekiguchi / Yuji Kunimoto) and Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R (Daiki Sasaki / Joao Paulo de Oliveira – the Brazilian came back to Kondo Racing after leaving the team at the end of 2010) staying in the camp, now Yokohama has three cars to supply its products in the class.

As the technical regulations for GT500 cars were heavily revised this year, all teams switched to new specification cars for this season opener in Okayama. The biggest change was a 25% reduction of total downforce, which was achieved by smaller front splitters and rear diffusers. But this didn’t mean 25% slower cars because three manufacturers had tried to regain the lost downforce in the other areas and, of course, Yokohama was very keen to support its three cars by providing better tires.

On top of this, there was another reason that we might not have seen much slower cars in this particular race meeting: Okayama International Circuit had been totally resurfaced during last winter. Actually, in some of the supporting races, the course records were renewed for the first time in years. However, they were only possible under good weather conditions. The forecast had said that occasional showers would be expected on Saturday when the qualifying sessions would be run…

While it briefly drizzled during Q1 for GT300, the track was already totally dry when Q2 began. In this session, Nobuteru Taniguchi at the wheel of Goodsmile Hatsune Miku AMG set the second fastest time, just a tenth shy of the pole sitter. And Takamitsu Matsui, paired with Kenta Yamashita this year, in VivaC 86 MC took the third grid for the class.

In GT500, Motul Mugen NSX-GT earned the seventh grid, following WedsSport ADVAN LC500 in sixth, while Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R had to settle for 11th.

The weather got better on Sunday but the race didn’t go smoothly, as it saw the Safety Car and the red flag soon after the start. Sekiguchi in WedsSport ADVAN LC500 was already in fourth when the race got underway, thanks to the dropout of a few other cars, but he struggled to keep up with other Lexus drivers. Moreover, he moved down to fifth on Lap 16 when he made a small mistake at the hair pin corner.

Then Sekiguchi was involved in a side by side battle on the back straight on Lap 27 and was hit by the opponent at the braking area, which forced him to step back to sixth. This incident prompted his team to make a call to let him in earlier than schedule, so he came in to the pit on Lap 33 to change to Kunimoto.

With the tires that had different specifications from those used in the first stint, Kunimoto went on in a consistent pace. Although there was another Safety Car period in his stint, which reduced the gap with the cars in front, all he could do was to keep the sixth place until the finish. However, WedsSport ADVAN LC500’s crew certainly showed their consistency again by extending their consecutive point finish record to 19 races – which coincided with their car number! – in the span of four racing seasons.

Other NSX-GTs had problems early in the race but Motul Mugen NSX-GT was the only exception and the things were going well for Mutoh who was running in fifth in the early stage. However, he and his team mate Nakajima weren’t allowed to push further because they were obliged to finish the race as the only survivor of Honda squad.

So they had to settle for finishing in ninth at the end of the day but the teams still got two valuable championship points in the first race with the Yokohama’s tires on their car. Completing the race distance meant that they could collect various data on tires and Team Manager Nagataka Tezuka said, “we still have a lot to do but at the same time we learned a lot today. “

Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R started the race with de Oliveira at the wheel. As the two opponents dropped out very early, he was in ninth for a while before losing the spot during some battles against other GT-Rs. After making a pit stop on Lap 29, Sasaki tried to do his best for the rest of the race but he couldn’t improve his position and finished in tenth.

In the GT300 class, Tatsuya Kataoka in Goodsmile Hatsune Miku AMG followed the race leader closely from the moment the race began. Putting heavy pressure on the leader for the first 18 laps, he managed to get ahead of it at the entry of Double Hair Pins on Lap 19. With the track in front of him cleared, Kataoka picked up his pace and began to pull away. At the pit stop on Lap 29 when he changed with Taniguchi, the team replaced only two tires on the car’s left hand side to minimize the time lost in the pit.

Thanks to this tactic, Taniguchi found himself leading the race with a huge gap with the car in second when all cars completed their mandatory pitstop. Although he lost that margin when the Safety Car came out, he managed to build it up again and won the race comfortably, even easing his pace in the closing stage.

This was the first victory for Taniguchi / Kataoka pair since 2014, the year they had won the championship after winning the first two races. So it was a promising start for their quest for the another title.

As Goodsmile Hatsune Miku AMG was so fast throughout the race, the spectators’ interest was rather focused on the battle for the second which VivaC 86 MC was involved. Yamashita at the wheel of the car was the challenger for second in the first half of the race but the team chose to change only two tires at the pit stop, just as the eventual class winner did, and it worked. On the only second lap in his stint, on Lap 29, Matsui managed to move up to second.

Matsui did everything he could to fend off attacks from behind until Lap 70 when he was lapped by the leading GT500 cars. Unfortunately, he was hit by one of the GT500 cars, which sent him down to fourth.

As a result of the incident, Gulf NAC Porsche 911 moved up to third. Despite starting the race from 17th grid, both Jono Lester in the first stint and Kyosuke Mineo in the second worked hard to come up through the field. On top of this, they made the most of restarts after the Safety Car periods to make their way to a podium finish. B-Max NDDP GT-R driven by Kazuki Hoshino and Mitsunori Takaboshi also played a good catch-up game from the 16th grid and finished the race in seventh.