【SUPER GT Round 5 / Fuji】

GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG takes championship lead by finishing second.
WedsSport ADVAN LC500 jumps up to seventh from 14th grid.

SUPER GT Round 5

Date	2017/08/05-06
Venue	Fuji Speedway
Weather	Cloudy
Surface	Dry
Race Lap	66Laps (1Lap = 4,563m)

• >>Report
• >>Result

For the eighth round 2017 Super GT series, the fifth meeting – and the second visit to Fuji Speedway – meant the beginning of the season’s second half. The teams got together at Fuji only in two weeks time after the dramatic Sugo round that was heavily influenced by weather.

Under the blue sky, Mt.Fuji was clearly visible from the race track that was named after the famous mountain on Saturday early morning. But it turned cloudy before the qualifying session began, to the extent that many anticipated some rain. Eventually, the session was run on the dry track throughout but the temperatures were somewhat lower than expected.

Lead by Jorg Muller in Studie BMW M6, ten Yokohama shoed GT300 cars made their way into Q2. The German’s partner, Seiji Ara, managed to reduce the time further in Q2 but he was beaten by an opponent, so he secured the second grid to start the race from the front row.

Tatsuya Kataoka at the wheel of GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG set the third fastest time in Q2, while Takamitsu Matsui in the championship leading VivaC 86 MC ended the session in 12th, after his partner, Kenta Yamashita, got through Q1 in 13th. Their struggle was very much predicted this time because the FIA-GT cars had an advantage on straight line speed, compared to the JAF-GT cars like VivaC 86 MC.

In the GT500 class, where Lexus have generally been superior to other two makes, WedsSport ADVAN LC500 was one of the fastest cars in the official practice session because it had less weight handicap than other Lexus cars. Using the medium tires, Yuhi Sekiguchi clocked the fastest time in the final minutes of the session, so the WedsSport car was regarded as a hot favorite for the pole position battle.

Against expectations, however, Yuji Kunimoto ended Q1 in lowly 14th after making his qualifying attempts with the hard tires, so their qualifying session was over then. Similarly, Hideki Muto driving Motul Mugen NSX-GT was lost out the battle for Q2 with the 12th fastest time.

On the other hand, after getting a fresh engine at the Sugo round, Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R was placed on fourth in Q1 by the hands of Joao Paulo de Oliveira who put his 100th mark in the Super GT series this weekend. Then Daiki Sasaki secured the fifth grid with his all-out qualifying attempt. The team’s first podium finish this season looked well within their reach at the time.

It was still cloudy on Sunday but strong sunshine was breaking through the clouds. And, as the time to start the race was approaching, the weather became more and more agreeable with a nice breeze and light clouds that kept out the sunshine. As a result, the air temperature at the time of start was around 29 degrees Celsius with the track surface temperature at 36 degrees but they actually fell down further to 27 and 32 after the race began.

WedsSport ADVAN LC500 had the most impressive race among the three Yokohama shoed GT500 cars this time. Driving for the car’s first stint, Sekiguchi overtook his opponents ahead of him one after another and had already moved up to ninth on Lap 11. He kept fighting hard against the cars around him and was running as high as third when the leading cars began to make their pit stops.

Sekiguchi came in to the pit on Lap 32 to change to Kunimoto. Because the pit stop took longer than usual, the WedsSports car lost a few positions and Kunimoto found himself running in tenth when he resumed racing. But he also did an aggressive driving throughout his stint, which resulted in finishing the race in seventh despite starting from the 14th grid.

Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R started the race with Oliveira at the wheel. He came up to fourth soon after the start and kept the position for a while, even though he was involved close battles with other cars around him. However, he began to struggle a little bit in the second half of his stint. The Brazilian fell back to fifth on Lap 23 but he wasn’t far behind from his direct opponents ahead of him yet.

On Lap 31, the car was handed to Sasaki. And, on his way to catching the leaders, the Japanese made contact with another car and unfortunately the impact caused a mechanical problem in his car’s steering system. Sasaki had to ease the pace to finish the race at least but the problem was getting worse and worse, so the team called him in to the pit after completing 52 laps in total and decided to retire from the race. In the final result, Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R was still classified in 13th, as the number of laps was enough to be considered as a finisher.

Motul Mugen NSX-GT set the fastest time in the warm up session before the race. With a lot of confidence about the car’s pace, Muto started the race but he immediately lost a position on only second lap of the race and fell back to 13th. It was hard for him to keep a good pace because the track temperature became lower than those in the warm up session and the tires didn’t work at its best.

After the pit stop for driver change, Daisuke Nakajima immediately overtook two opponents and was looking to get into the top 10 to earn a championship point. But, for an incident with a GT300 car caused a heavy damage on the car, especially on its left-hand side, Nakajima had to bring back the car to the garage to retire on Lap 45.

As for the GT300 class, Ara in Studie BMW M6 and Kataoka in GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG kept their grid positions for a while. Although the race leader pulled away from them, they fought hard for second together with other two cars behind them.

Without making any mistake during their stint, Ara and Kataoka remained in second and third until their pit stop. The former came in to the pit on Lap 23 to change to Muller, the latter did the same four laps later to hand the car to Taniguchi. And both teams replaced all four tires with fresh ones at the stop but the two JAF-GT cars behind them were able to continue without any tire changes at all or after changing only two rear tires.

Because of this difference in pit stop times, now Taniguchi found himself running in third, while Muller dropped to sixth, as Gulf NAC Porsche 911which had been in sixth in the early stage also got passed him during the process.

Taniguchi overtook the car ahead of him on the track on Lap 41. Then he reduced the gap with the race leader to just four seconds, only to be told by the team to save fuel, probably as a consequence of the team’s optimistic calculation about refueling. So he had no choice but to ease the pace in the final laps and finished the race in second.

Nevertheless, GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG emerged as the championship leader by this second-place finish. The ex-leader, Matsui/Yamashita pair of VivaC 86 MC, only finished the race out of points due to a glitch in the electrical system, so they are now behind Taniguchi/Kataoka pair by nine points.

Gulf NAC Porsche 911 driven by Jono Lester and Kyosuke Mineo came in fifth, while Studie BMW M6 ended the race in sixth.