【SUPER GT Round 5 / Suzuka】

WedsSport ADVAN RC F finishes fourth falling just short of podium.
Studie BMW Z4 takes second after fighting hard.

SUPER GT Round 5

Date	2015/08/29-30
Venue	Suzuka Circuit
Weather	Rain / Cloudy
Surface	Wet / Dry
Race Lap	163Laps (1Lap = 5,807ｍ)

• >>Report
• >>Result

The fifth round of the 2014 Super GT series, International Suzuka 1000km, was held at Suzuka Circuit last weekend of August. The traditional long distance race marked the first of the second half of the series and has been a popular fixture as the toughest race in the intense lingering summer heat. But this year there was no blue sky throughout the weekend and in fact the event was affected by the repeated rainfall, which was quite unusual for this event.

Although the rain from the night before had already ceased, a number of wet patches remained on the track surfaces when the official practice session on Saturday began. Under such tricky conditions, the teams didn’t have the proper opportunity to find out the right car setup before the qualifying session which was run on the completely dry track.

In the GT300 qualifying session, the Mother Chassis (MC) cars performed really well and all five MC cars survived the fight for Q2. Among them, Syntium Apple Lotus’ driver, Hiroki Katoh, set 1’58”248 in Q2, which was good enough to secure the pole position, after a remarkable performance of Hiroshi Hamaguchi, who was hired as a third driver for this long distance race, in Q1.

“As we have three drivers, each of us didn’t have enough practice time in the session. So we had some difficulty finding out a good setup but the team did a great job in adjustments. On top of this, the tires suited to our car very well, thanks to Yokohama Tire’s efforts, which led to this pole position. I would really like to thank all of them,” said Kato.

In Q2, eight Yokohama equipped drivers fought the top 13 grids. Behind Kato, Seiji Ara in Studie BMW Z4 took the third grid and Manbu Orido at the wheel of Manepa Lamborghini GT3 ended the session in fifth.

Yuhi Sekiguchi drove WedsSport ADVAN RC F in Q1 for the GT500 class. But the team’s decision to send him out early in the session didn’t pay off, as he couldn’t find a clear lap in his first qualifying attempt and the second one was marred by the red flag. As a result, he had to settle for the tenth in Q1 and missed making his way into Q2.

Because of the victory in the last race at Fuji, D’station ADVAN GT-R had to carry a heavy weight handicap in this meeting, which certainly penalized Daiki Sasaki’s qualifying lap time. Knowing this beforehand, the team decided to sacrifice the starting grid position and used the session to set up the car for the race, as there would be no warm up session to try the final setup on Sunday, except for a limited run just before the race. After ending the qualifying session in 13th, Sasaki said “now I know the setup works, so I expect we will perform better in the race.”

But D’station ADVAN GT-R had another problem on Sunday. As the cockpit cooling device failure was found and the team tried to fix it in a rush, the car couldn’t take part in the warm up run just before the starting procedures. The fixing work didn’t finish before the time to leave the garage, so the car had to go without the device which was really important for the drivers in this mid-summer long distance race.

When the race got underway, the rain started to fall again and was getting heavier. It didn’t help the Yokohama shoed drivers, Sekiguchi in WedsSport ADVAN RC F and Sasaki in D’station ADVAN GT-R, and, despite their whole-hearted efforts, both drivers lost a few positions in the early stage.

As the rain stopped later, Sasaki came into the pit earlier than scheduled to switch to the dry tires and changed to Michael Krumm but the car’s pace didn’t improve much. Eventually, D’station ADVAN GT-R ended the race on Lap 148 because the left rear wheel came off at the exit of the pit lane when Krumm was going to rejoin the race for their final stint.

WedsSport ADVAN RC F also struggled in the early stage and fell back to 13th but Sekiguchi continued his effort with patience. And, after the first driver change, Juichi Wakisaka began blistering recovery as the track surfaces were drying. The car was already running in eighth around the halfway point of the race but both drivers didn’t ease their pace at all. On Lap 160, Sekiguchi moved up to fourth and he was almost catching up with the nearest rival when the checkered flag fell three laps later as the time to end the race came.

Thus, WedsSport ADVAN RC F narrowly missed a place on the podium but scored the championship points for the fifth straight race by finishing in fourth. Their strong race from the back of the field got a big applause from a large crowd of fans.

Kato at the wheel of Syntium Apple Lotus comfortably led the GT300 class from the start, as if repeating his dominant speed in the qualifying session. In order to make the most of his good pace, the team extended his stint to Lap 35 before changing to Hamaguchi. Because they lost a few places during the pit stop, Hamaguchi rejoined the race in third but the race leader was still in his sight, so the regaining the lead looked quite possible at the time.

When the Safety Car came out just after the race had entered its third hour, however, Hamaguchi came into the pit before the pit lane was opened under the Safety Car procedures. Because of this, Syntium Apple Lotus was given a 90 second stop and go penalty and dropped out of the contention for the top slots.

From Lap 78, Orido in Manepa Lamborghini GT3 led the race. The car kept the lead position until Lap 94 after changing driver to Kazuki Hiramine but, as the track conditions improved, the lack of straight line speed of the car caused him to lose positions gradually.

After that, the star of the race was Studie BMW Z4. While Jorge Muller who drove for the second stint committed a white line cut when he went out to the track from the pit lane and was given a driving through penalty, the Ara/Muller pair steadily recovered the lost ground over the following stints. Around the halfway point, the car was running in third and then Ara gained one more place on Lap 112.

Ten laps later, Studie BMW Z4 made its final pit stop, which coincided with the stop of the car running in third. As the BMW took a little longer to refuel during the stop, Muller rejoined the race in third but he regained the second by overtaking the car in front at Spoon Curve on his out lap. Then he immediately started to close the gap with the race leading Gainer Tanax GT-R.

The German actually caught up the GT-R and the two cars spent the last few laps in tail-to-nose. However, as the GT-R driver didn’t make any mistakes, Studie BMW Z4 finished the race in second with only a second behind the winner. The second place was the best result of the season for the BMW crew. Concerning the Yokohama equipped cars, Manepa Lamborghini GT3 came in fourth, followed by the Richard Lyons/Tomonobu Fuji pair’s Audi R8 LMS Ultra in fifth.