【SUPER GT Round 8 / Motegi】

VivaC 86 MC wins final race and GT300 championship.
WedsSport ADVAN RC F concludes season with podium finish.

SUPER GT Round8

Date	2016/11/11-13
Venue	Twinring Motegi
Weather	Fine
Surface	Dry
Race Lap	53Laps (1Lap = 4,801m)

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The eighth round of 2016 Super GT series, Motegi GT Grand Final, was the last race of the season and it was held just on the next day following the substitution race for the third round that was originally planned to be run at Autopolis. So there still remained some air of excitement at Motegi on Sunday.

While the weather was fine on Saturday, it was even better on the race day. When the 15-minute qualifying session began – it wasn’t run under Knock Out system because of the tighter than usual schedule throughout the weekend, the track surfaces were completely dry, unlike the session for the Saturday’s race.

Nobuteru Taniguchi in Goodsmile Hatsune Miku AMG was the first to set a time below 1’47” in the GT300 class but, soon after he concluded his qualifying attempt, Naoya Gamou at the wheel of Leon Cvstos AMG-GT just beat Taniguchi’s time. Gamou looked likely to secure the pole position, however, then it was denied by one of the opponents in the final minutes.

At the same time, Kazuki Hiramine in Manepa Lamborghini and Hiroki Yoshida in Gulf NAC Porsche 911 also set qualifying times that were better than that of Taniguchi, putting him into fifth. As for the championship leaders, Takamitsu Matsui behind the wheel of VivaC 86 MC was classified in sixth, while Jann Mardenborough in B-Max NDDP GT-R, which had ended Saturday’s race without adding a point, was in lowly 14th.

In the GT500 class, Takamasa Yanagida was in charge of Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R’s qualifying run. At the winner’s press conference yesterday, he said, “I can’t be exceedingly happy because we will have another race tomorrow,” and he seemed already to focus on this qualifying session. But when it actually began, he struggled to put up a good time and ended the session in an improbable 12th. Considering the fact that he “used the same type of tires as yesterday,” the speed should be there in the race, however.

In contrast, Yuji Kunimoto driving WedsSport ADVAN RC F made a good showing and secured the fourth grid. This meant, if they could play the yesterday’s catch-up again, it would be possible for them to grab a victory in the race, concluding the season in the best way imaginable.

The sky was clear and there was no cloud at all, when the race started. Showing his strong fighting spirit, Yuhi Sekiguchi at the wheel of WedsSport ADVAN RC F moved up to third on Lap 13. And when he made the scheduled pit stop ten laps later, the team made a different choice from Saturday and changed all four tires during the stop.

Kunimoto who drove for the second half of the race also maintained a good pace and he was still running in third when all leading cars completed the mandatory driver change. With the tires that were much fresher than he had yesterday on his car, he was able to close the gap with the top two but the race was a little too short for him to catch up the leaders. Still, Kunimoto and Sekiguchi got on the podium for the second time this season and extended the team’s consecutive point finish record to 18 races.

But it was a disappointing race for the crew of Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R. To find an opportunity to achieve the second win in the same weekend, Yanagida who was at the wheel of the car for the first stint needed to move up through the field in the early stage. However, he was stuck behind the opponents, which prevented him from driving in his own pace and improving his position.

To overcome the situation, the team decided to make the pit stop earlier than planned on Lap 19. While Sasaki rejoined the race without changing tires again, he also got into a heavy traffic and had no way to better his position. At the end of the day, he had to settle for finishing in tenth, so this was a weekend of taking the bitter with the sweet for them to close out the season.

The top three qualifiers retained their position at the start of the GT300 race. Haruki Kurosawa in Leon Cvstos AMG-GT and Manabu Orido in Manepa Lamborghini put heavy pressure on the race leader but, on Lap 8, Orido was forced to slow down and came in to the pit due to a problem on a drive shaft. Of course, his team crew looked really disappointed because they knew the car would have had a good chance for winning the race.

The championship leader, Tsuchiya driving VivaC 86 MC, had a good cushion against the other championship contender in terms of points but of course he really wanted to add as many points as possible to secure the title. Starting from the sixth grid, he fell back to tenth when he completed the opening lap. It was because he chose the tire pressure at “a very low level that I’ve never seen before,” to adapt to the no tire change strategy which he had just taken on the grid.

Meanwhile, Leon Cvstos AMG-GT made an early pit stop on Lap 16, as Kurosawa couldn’t find a way to overtake the race leader on the track. During the stop, he changed to Gamou, while the team changed only rear tires. On the same lap, VivaC 86 MC also came in to the pit and Matsui went out on the track for a long second stint with the tire set that Tsuchiya had started the race with.

As the race leader made a stop on the next lap and left the pit after only driver change without changing tires, their relative positions didn’t alter very much for a while. However, Matsui came up to second by passing Gamou and he immediately began to put pressure on the leader. On Lap 34, Matsui made a move at V Corner without showing any hesitation and the race leader had no choice but to give way to the VivaC car driver.

After that, the focus of the race moved to the battle for second. It seemed to be a matter of time before Gamou’s Leon Cvstos AMG-GT overtook the opponent in front of him but, instead, he had to come back to the pit because of a gearbox problem.

Behind them, Mardenborough in B-Max NDDP GT-R and Taniguchi at the wheel of Goodsmile Hatsune Miku AMG began a fight for third, which became another highlight of the race. It was settled at V Corner again on Lap 45, as Taniguchi managed to pass the GT-R driver. After this battle, Mardenborough lost out to other two opponents including Excellence Porsche and finished the race in sixth. Still, it was great effort from him and Kazuki Hoshino, considering that they earned eight positions through the race after starting from the 14th grid.

In contrast to the battles behind him, Matsui comfortably got clear away from the competition and nothing bothered him until he saw the checkered flag. VivaC 86 MC’s second win of the season, which came five weeks after the first one in Thailand, was enough to secure their wished-for championship title.

This was the first crown in the Super GT series for Tsuchiya who said, “The last championship title I won was that of my karting days!” He recently announced he would retire from driving on regular basis and concentrate on an engineering role, so this was really the last hurrah for him. Therefore, he had every reason to celebrate the crowing, together with his protégé Matsui on the podium.

By finishing in third, Taniguchi and Kataoka driving Goodsmile Hatsune Miku AMG got on the podium for the first time since the season’s opening race. Among other Yokohama shoed cars, Excellence Porsche (Naoya Yamano/Jorg Bergmeister) and Taisan Sard FJ Audi R8 (Yuya Motojima/Tsubasa Kondo) were classified in fifth and seventh respectively and got their second point finishes in the same weekend.