【SUPER GT Round 7 / Chang (Thailand)】

Yokohama shoed cars triumph in both GT500 and GT300 classes.
WedsSport ADVAN RC F and VivaC 86 MC win from pole position.

SUPER GT Round7

Date	2016/10/08-09
Venue	Chang International Circuit
Weather	Fine
Surface	Dry
Race Lap	66Laps (1Lap = 4,554ｍ)

• >>Report
• >>Result

The Super GT series has traditionally had an overseas race meeting once a year and this was its third year to hold a race in Thailand, after switching from Malaysia. Last year, the race was held in June but it returned to the October slot this year, as was the case of first ever Super GT event at Chang International Circuit in 2014.

Everybody from Japan had expected extreme heat on Saturday. But the temperature stayed around 30 degrees Celsius at the highest in the daytime on the qualifying day, so it fell short of their worst expectations. While a squall in the early morning wetted the track, it was almost dried when the official practice session on Saturday morning got under way. And one of the major topics in the session was that WedsSport ADVAN RC F and Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R were the fastest cars in the GT500 class.

Shortly after that, Q1 session for GT300 began. Led by Upgarage Bandoh 86 with Shinnosuke Yamada at the wheel, which was the third fastest in the class, 11 Yokohama shoed cars made their way into Q2 in which only top 14 cars in the precedent section were allowed to run. Last year’s pole sitter in Thailand, Takeshi Tsuchiya in VivaC 86 MC, was in fourth but, in a sharp contrast with this, Kazuki Hoshino in B-Max NDDP GT-R who had won this race for the last two years struggled and he was the last of the top 14 in Q1.

However, the young team mates of Tsuchiya and Hoshino did a great job in Q2 and bettered their positions. Takamitsu Matsui in VivaC 86 MC set 1’32”102 to secure their third pole position of the season and Jann Mardenborough at the wheel of B-Max NDDP GT-R followed in second with a 0.7 second gap from Matsui. Tsuchiya and Hoshino had to take their hats off to them!

WedsSport ADVAN RC F easily advanced to Q2 in the hands of Yuji Kunimoto who set the fourth fastest time in Q1 for GT500 cars. Then Yuhi Sekiguchi started to attack aggressively from the beginning of Q2 section and improved his time lap after lap. His effort led to the fastest time of the day on his final attempt, which meant the team, Racing Project Bandoh, secured their first ever pole position in GT500.

The pavement was dry as it was on the previous day but there were patches of blue sky over the circuit on Sunday. During the warm up session in the morning, in which the teams checked their car setup for the race, WedsSport ADVAN RC F made some unscheduled setup changes because the drivers reported a slightly different feeling from what they had had in the qualifying session. But the car set the fastest time again in the eight-minute warm up session just before the start, so the concern about car setup was totally cleared.

Sekiguchi, who was the starting driver of WedsSport ADVAN RC F, made a perfect rolling start to keep the lead position and tried to pull away from the rest of the field. While it took a few laps to build a small gap with the cars behind him, then he could gradually expand it after Lap 5.

When Sekiguchi built an almost ten second gap, however, he was forced to make a pit stop earlier than scheduled. This was because the tires were completely worn out, as he tried to “use up all rubber” he had during the stint. Fortunately, they were totally gone in the second half of the lap, so he could come in to the pit without losing significant time and it allowed Kunimoto to rejoin the race still in the lead position, after the driver change.

They still had a reason to worry because Kunimoto had to do almost same number of laps as his team mate had done, using the same type of tires. But, by managing the tires really well, he was able to build the gap with the car in second again in his stint and eventually scored their maiden victory in the GT500 class.

Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R had to start the race from the 13th grid, after having a less successful qualifying session. Masataka Yanagida started the race at the wheel of the car but he struggled to move up the field, so the team decided to take a gamble of forgoing the tire change at the pit stop to improve the track position.

But it seemed to be a bit of a stretch, especially considering the high temperatures on the race day. As a result, Daiki Sasaki who drove for the second stint completely used up the tires and had to make an extra pit stop to get fresh ones. At the end of the day, they just had to settle for finishing the race in 13th.

Tsuchiya in VivaC 86 MC took the lead at Turn 1 after starting from the pole position in the GT300 class but Hoshino, helped by a stronger acceleration of B-Max NDDP GT-R’s turbo engine, got ahead of Tsuchiya’s 86 at Turn 4 on the opening lap. Then Gainer Tanax GT-R also overtook Tsuchiya but the Tanax car made contact with a GT500 car, resulting in giving second place back to the Japanese driver.

He made a pit stop to change to Matsui on Lap 26 and, thanks to the team’s decision not to change tires at the stop, VivaC 86 MC was leading the race again when all cars completed their mandatory stops.

At that point, Yuki Nakayama in Upgarage Bandoh 86 was in second, followed by Mardenborough in B-Max NDDP GT-R in third. With Matsui still leading, these two cars began to fight for second and this became the highlight of the second half of the race. However, the battle abruptly ended when Nakayama collided against a GT500 car at Turn 5 on Lap 52. Unfortunately, he had to retire the race after bringing the car back to the pit, while Upgarage Bandoh 86 was still classified as a finisher.

Mardenborough, now in clean air, started to push hard and close the gap with Matsui by setting the fastest lap times again and again. But the race was only a little bit too short for the Briton, as the checkered flag fell when he reduced the gap with the leader that had been almost 10 seconds to just over a second.

Tsuchiya and Matsui in VivaC 86 MC scored their first victory of the season and regained the top slot in the point standings. By finishing the race in second, B-Max NDDP GT-R also moved up to second in the championship with just a five-point deficit. So, a clean sweep of the upper rankings in the GT300 class championship by Yokohama shoed cars can well be expected at the end of the season.