【SUPER GT Round 3 / Chang】

B-Max NDDP GT-R wins GT300 class two years running.
WedsSport ADVAN RC F continues point finishes since season opener.

SUPER GT Round 3

Date	2015/06/20-21
Venue	Chang International Circuit (Thailand)
Weather	Fine
Surface	Dry
Race Lap	66Laps (1Lap = 4,554ｍ)

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• >>Result

It has been a long tradition for the Super GT series to have an overseas event once a year but it’s only second time to visit Chang International Circuit in Buriram, Thailand. While the last year’s race was held in October at the then newly build race track, the series returned to Buriram in June this year due to an impromptu schedule change. Thus the third round of the series, Buriram Super GT 300km Race, was run June 20-21, in which the teams and drivers entertained spectators with the hotly fought battles, despite the difficult conditions of extreme heat and humidity.

The qualifying session really went well for the Yokohama shoed GT300 teams, as Hiroki Katoh in Syntium Apple Lotus set the fastest time in Q1, 1’34”456, and eight out of 13 cars that were allowed to go on to Q2 were relying on Yokohama’s rubber. Then Takeshi Tsuchiya at the wheel of VivaC 86 MC clocked 1’33”915 in the final minutes of Q2 and secured his first pole position this year – and for the first time in 16 years for him! He was followed by Mitsunori Takaboshi in B-Max NDDP GT-R, whose qualifying time was 1’33”988.

In the GT500 class, the Q1 attacker of WedsSport ADVAN RC F, Yuhi Sekiguchi, put the car in second place and made its way into Q2 by setting 1’25”576. However, the veteran Juichi Wakisaka’s aggressive attempt in his driving in answer to the young teammate’s effort didn’t pay off and the up-to-the-limit set up change made by the team also didn’t work, as the ride height was a little bit too low and it caused the car to bottom to the track surfaces. As a result, Wakisaka lost control of the car during his qualifying run and had to abort it because the tires were damaged in the process. Nevertheless, the WedsSport car sat on the eight grid for the race.

Lucas Ordonez who drove D’station ADVAN GT-R in Q1 looked highly motivated, as he was the first to go out to the track when the session began. But he seemed to try too hard and ended up with only 14th fastest time, 1’26”400, which meant Daiki Sasaki didn’t have an opportunity to show his ability in Q2.

The weather forecast had said the chance of rain would be quite high on Sunday and, in Thailand, it doesn’t rain but it pours, just as the old saying goes. So the race could have been run on the very different conditions from those on the practice and qualifying day but there was no sign of rain even when the time to start was about to come, although there were clouds in the sky. The strong enthusiasm of a huge crowd of spectators in the grandstand might blow away the rain cloud!

WedsSport ADVAN RC F with Wakisaka at the wheel failed to warm up the tires sufficiently during the formation lap. This caused him to lose a position at the start and three more places in the first three laps. On top of this, on his way to regain the lost ground, he was hit from behind by another car and spun in a yellow flagged section on Lap 5. Although the car’s damage was minimal, Wakisaka lost more time before rejoining the race, which eventually decided their race.

But the pace itself after that wasn’t so poor. After the driver change on Lap 30, Sekiguchi pushed really hard and started to move up from 12th, the position where he rejoined the race. On Lap 44, he was already running in tenth and gained one more position ten laps later. He eventually kept that position until the end of the race and the team earned valuable points for the third time in as many races since the season opener.

As for D’station ADVAN GT-R, the team had every expectation of Ordonez’s fighting back through the field from the 14th grid. His partner, Sasaki, has always performed well in Buriram – he finished last year’s race in second – and the Japanese was the second fastest in the warm up session on Sunday morning, so expectations were even higher. The Spaniard kept the position at the start but he fell back to 15th on Lap 3 because the car’s motor already had a malfunction at the time. As he lost almost all of the engine power and the situation was getting only worse, the team had no choice but calling him back to the pit to retire the race.

In the GT300 class, Kazuki Hoshino in B-Max NDDP GT-R made a good showing immediately after the start. Hoshino/Takaboshi pair had narrowly missed out the pole position in the qualifying session, but he followed very closely to Tsuchiya’s pole sitting VivaC 86 MC after rocketing from the grid and then he swiftly overtook the VivaC car at Turn 4. Hoshino wasted no time before pulling him away. On the other hand, Tsuchiya had to give way to Gainer Tanax GT-R on the next lap but he stuck firmly to the third place in the class for a while.

On Lap 29, the race leading B-Max NDDP GT-R made the pit stop when Hoshino had built a massive 13 second margin. Gainer Tanax GT-R, running in second, also made a stop on the same lap but, when Takaboshi in the B-Max car rejoined the race, he actually had even larger gap with his closest rival, thanks to his team’s quick service at the pit. With a big cushion against the Gainer car, Takaboshi was able to control the pace and to nurse his tires for the rest of his stint. Thus, he scored his first victory in the Super GT series safely and it was the first win in a year for Hoshino and the team, after winning last year’s race in Thailand.

The third place finisher was Jorg Muller/Seiji Ara pair in Studie BMW Z4. Starting from the sixth grid, Ara lost a few positions in the beginning of the race but he was still running in a pack of the cars that were fighting for the fourth. He came in to the pit on Lap 24 to change to Muller and the team opted for sending the German out to the track without replacing tires. Two laps later, Tatsuya Kataoka in Goodsmile Hatsune Miku SLS made a pit stop and changed to Nobuteru Taniguchi, who also resumed the racing with the set of tires that Kataoka started the race with. When Taniguchi rejoined, however, Muller already got ahead of him. The Studie BMW driver performed really well with the worn tires and even moved up further to third by overtaking Takamitsu Matsui in VivaC 86 MC on Lap 48.

It was a shame that Matsui’s car developed a fuel system failure after that and he was forced to visit the pit again to add some fuel, just five laps to go. But they were still lucky enough to finish the race in seventh. Goodsmile Hatsune Miku SLS had a problem with the left rear tire on Lap 40 when Taniguchi was running in sixth. While he managed to bring the car back to the pit to replace the tire, the time lost during the process meant that the car dropped to 13th and ended the race out of points. Partly thanks to the fallback of these two cars, Leon SLS of Haruki Kurosawa/Naoya Gamou pair finished in fifth and got the championship points for the second consecutive race.