【SUPER GT Round 6 / Suzuka】

Yokohama shoed cars dominate qualifying sessions both GT500 and GT300.
JLOC’s two Lamborghinis get on podium in GT300.

SUPER GT Round 6

Date	2017/08/026-27
Venue	Suzuka Circuit
Weather	Fine
Surface	Dry
Race Lap	173Laps (1Lap = 5,807m)

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The sixth round of 2017 Super GT series took place at the Suzuka Circuit. The event known as Suzuka 1000km Race in summer time has a long tradition and this was the 46th annual meeting since 1966 with only a few interruptions, while it was only 12th as a round of the Super GT series. But this will be the last time for the race to be run in a guise of 1000km and as one of the Super GT series event.

In this long distance 1000km race, the teams are allowed to have a third driver to add to regular forces and a sort of “special guests” sometimes attracts much attention. For this time, Yokohama shoed GT500 teams had two big names.

Ex-Grand Prix driver Kamui Kobayashi joined the Yuhi Sekiguchi / Yuji Kunimoto pair to drive WedsSport ADVAN LC500. And another great addition was 2009 F1 World Champion Jenson Button who was invited to share Mugen Motul NSX-GT with Hideki Muto and Daisuke Nakajima.

Kobayashi and Button are known to have had some exciting battles in Grand Prix racing. So this was a rare reunion for them in a different race category at the famous Grand Prix circuit which they know very well.

As it had rained until early morning, the track was still wet when the official practice session on Saturday got underway. Thanks to strong sunshine, however, the track surface compeltely dried soon, so there was no concern abount the track conditions for the qualifying session. But, because of this, the track temperature at 37 degrees Celsius was a little lower than anticipated, while the air temperature at 31 was pretty close to the prediction.

The fastest in Q1 for GT300 was Kiyoto Fujinami at the wheel of Mach Syaken MC86 GTNet. He was followed by Hiroki Yoshimoto in Syntium LMcorsa RC F GT3 and only these two drivers managed to clock the lap times under 1’59”.

Given that Goodsmile Hatsune Miku AMG and VivaC 86 MC had to carry heavy weight handicaps, 100kg and 82kg respectively, it was surprising that Nobuteru Taniguchi in the former set the eighth fastest time and Takamitsu Matsui in the latter set the qualifying time that was just enough to make its way into Q2.

But the biggest suprise came after that. Matsui’s partner, Kenta Yamashita in the VivaC car with 82kg handicap weight on board, secured the pole position in Q2, setting the new course record!

As Button had already driven Motul Mugen NSX-GT in a tyre testing session in June, the team entrusted him the role of Q1 attacker of the car. After setting a competitive time in Sector 1, however, he came across a car on its out lap at Degnar Curve, which cost him a few tenth. As a result, he was classified in ninth by a tenth from the car in eighth and failed to bring the car into Q2. He later said with a chagrined tone, if hadn’t he had the traffic, getting to Q2 would have been quite possible.

Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R got through Q1 in fourth by the hands of Daiki Sasaki and then Joan Paulo de Oliveira did a beautiful job of securing the pole position in Q2 by setting a new couse record.

Weds Sport ADVAN LC500 also perfomed well in the session, as both Kunimoto and Sekiguchi set the second fastest times in Q1 and Q2 respectively. Thus, two Yokohama shoed cars took the first and second grid, lining up on the front row.

The air temperature rose above 30 degrees when the race was about to start on Sunday. With Oliveira at the wheel, Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R led the race and pulled away from the rest of the field for the first few laps. But then his pace began to stagnate considerably, which resulted in giving away the lead position to his closest opponent on Lap 13.

The crew had to endure a power steering malfunction after their second pit stop. This caused Sasaki and Oliviera to have a hard time during the second half of the race, but they eventually finished in fifth by making tenacious efforts without making any significant mistake until the end.

With Sekiguchi at the wheel, WedsSport ADVAN LC500 followed the race leader, Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R, closely in the early stage. But he fell back to third at Spoon Curve on Lap 12 because he nearly went off the track there.

Three laps later, Sekiguchi regained the position where he started the race and then came in to the pit at the end of Lap 28 to change to Kunimoto. While there was a Safety Car period during his stint, he kept running in second and handed the car to Kobayashi for the team’s third stint at the end of Lap 56.

Driving a Super GT car for the first time in a race, Kobayashi seemed to struggle a bit to find a good pace, so he lost some ground and found himself running in fifth on Lap 69. Then he brought the car back to the pit on Lap 77, after completing his 21 lap stint without a major mishap.

In the second half of the race, the trio of WedsSport ADVAN LC500 drivers managed to keep a good pace and were involved in close fight for third for a while. The final stint was entrusted to Sekiguchi who was driving for the third time on this day.

While running in fourth, he made a mistake under braking for Chicane on Lap 151 when he tried to defend his position from a car coming from behind. This cost him one place but he overtook another car only four laps to go and received the checkered flag in fourth.

Nakajima, the starting driver of Motul Mugen NSX-GT, made a good start and overtook his opponents one after another to move up to fifth. At the end of Lap 25, he made the first stop for them and changed to Button. After tire change and refueling, the Briton left the pit only to have a near-miss incident with a GT300 car on the pit lane.

Although there was no physical contact between them, the race control gave Motul Mugen NSX-GT a drive-through penalty for not observing the priority rules on the pit lane. Button was running in third when he rejoined the race but fell down to 11th after serving the penalty.

Then the car was given another drive-through penalty for overtaking during the Safety Car period which began on Lap 44. On top of these two penalties, the crew had a few more mishaps during the race and had to settle for finishing in 12th, two laps down from the winner.

In the GT300 class, the race was totally dominated by VivaC 86 MC and UpGarage Bandoh 86 until the middle phase, while they swapped the positions quite a few times because they had different pit sequences each other. And, in the early stage, Mach Syaken MC 86 GTNet followed them to form a 1-2-3 of “86” mother chassis cars.

But their reign didn’t last until the end. The Mach Syaken car was hit by a problem with the compresser that governs the car’s paddle shift system and lost a lot of ground. The Bandoh car lost a tie rod bolt on its front suspension during the Safety Car period, which meant the driver couldn’t steer properly, and fell down the pecking order during the repair work at the pit.

VivaC MC 86’s dominance lasted much longer and the car led the race until the closing phase. But the team’s decision not to change tires at the last stop backfired, allowing Leon Cvstos AMG to pass by, as the VivaC car struggled with the tires that were losing gripping power.

Considering the fight for the championship, the second place should have been good enough for VivaC MC 86 but their race abruptly ended in a most unexpected way. Only four laps to go, Matsui at the wheel crashed at the so-called Negative Bank corner and the car halted upside down.

This last minute drama put two JLOC run Lamborghinis on the podium, Manepa Lamborghini GT3 in second and Shop Channel Lamborghini GT3 in third. The team used some clever pit strategies, changing only rear tires at the stop sometimes, and the two car’s crew pushed hard each other to fight back throughout the race from the 11th and 20th grid respectively. So the drivers of both cars can’t stop laughing at the end of the day!

With Synsium LMcorsa RC F GT3 in fourth, five Yokohama shoed cars finished the race in top 10.