【SUPER GT Round 5 / Fuji】

Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R gets season-high second grid.
GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG gets on podium first time this year.

SUPER GT Round 5

Date	2018/08/04-08/05
Venue	Fuji Speedway
Weather	Cloudy
Surface	Dry
Race Lap	177Laps (1Lap = 4,563m)

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• >>Result

Fuji Speedway, which over these past few years has been emphasizing its status as the “home of endurance races,” hosted a 24-hour race in June, despite it not being for the Super GT cars. Then the fifth round of the series, this year’s second event at the circuit, was held as Fuji GT 500 Mile Race which was a revival of a traditional endurance race meeting from the past.

The five hundred mile, or 800 kilometer, race was the longest one in this season, as the 1000km race at Suzuka which had a very long history had been dropped from the calendar this year.

When the qualifying session on Saturday, August 4th, began, the air/track temperatures were around 31/44 degrees Celsius. In GT300, eight Yokohama user teams made their way into Q2 which was fought by top 14 cars in Q1.

In Q2, Sho Tsuboi in Hoppy 86 MC set the fastest time in the last minutes and secured his maiden pole position in Super GT. Hiroki Yoshida at the wheel of Gainer Tanax Triple A GT-R came in third, followed by Tatsuya Kataoka in GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG in fourth, while his partner, Nobuteru Taniguchi, was only the seventh fastest in Q1.

As for GT500, Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R was the fastest Yokohama shoed car in the qualifying session. Its best time in Q2 was good enough to get the second grid on the front row. Kenta Yamashita in WedsSport ADVAN RC F was fourth in Q1 but Yuji Kunimoto who drove the car in Q2 couldn’t better the position and ended the session in sixth.

Having scored the pole position in the previous round, Motul Mugen NSX-GT tried to repeat it but unfortunately the car failed to go to Q2, in the aftermath of a mechanical problem during the official practice session.

The conditions on Sunday were quite similar to those of the day before, as the air/track temperatures were at 31/47 when the race was about to start.

Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R started with Mitsunori Takaboshi at the wheel. He kept the position where he started from for a while, getting the race leader in his sight, but his pace dropped somewhat after Lap 15. As a result, he lost the position on eight laps later and then he was sucked into a pack of following cars.

Takaboshi fell back to fifth on Lap 29, before coming in to the pit to change to Joan Paulo de Oliveira two laps later. But, fortunately for them, one of their opponents lost significant time at the pit stop, so the Brazilian found himself running in third when he resumed racing.

Oliveira’s initial pace was good. He actually caught up the two race leading GT-Rs soon but it didn’t last long. Again, his speed decreased in the second half of his stint and had to step down to fourth on Lap 60 and then to fifth on Lap 78.

Then they fought with the midfielders for the rest of the race. Without making any major mistake, Takaboshi and Oliveira led Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R to the sixth-place finish and earned valuable six championship points.

Yamashita drove WedsSport ADVAN LC500 for the first stint of the race. He moved up to fourth in the opening lap, so many expected the car’s strong performance thereafter. However, it went the opposite way and he had to give way to other cars one after another because of his lackluster pace from then on.

When Yamashita came in for the first pit stop on Lap 29 to change to Kunimoto, they were running lowly 13th. But the crew of WedsSport ADVAN LC500 kept fighting and eventually finished the race in tenth.

Motul Mugen NSX-GT took a five stop strategy for the race, whereas most of others chose a four stop one, considering some findings from the qualifying session. Unfortunately, however, the car had a mechanical problem with only 15 laps to go, forcing Hideki Muto who was supposed to drive until the finish to stop the car on the track, without seeing the checkered flag.

Starting from the GT300 pole position, Tsuboi in Hoppy 86 MC led the first seven laps of the race, but it wasn’t possible for him to keep the position because the FIA-GT3 cars were significantly superior in their straight-line speed.

Trying to stop losing position, Takeshi Tsuchiya, team manager, utilized a clever strategy of tire change in each stop during the race. Keeping a balance between the time spent in a stop and the life of tires, they changed “only the right-hand side tires at the first stop, then the left and side at the second, no change at the third, and all four tires at the fourth and last stop,” as he said.

The strategy worked well. While they slid back to fifth from the first on the grid, it was still quite a achievement because any Mother Chassis car, the likes of their Hoppy 86 MC, hadn’t made a point finish for the last two years at Fuji.

GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG was the highest placed finisher among Yokohama users. After running in fourth where the car started the race for the first stint, the team changed tire strategy, taking an opinion from Kataoka who drove the stint. Although they had been ready for a strategy like the one Tsuchiya’s team took, Kataoka recommended to change all tires at every pit stop. As a result, the crew was able to push throughout the race, which led to the second-place finish.