【SUPER GT Round 1 / Okayama】

Super GT 2018 season starts with exciting battles.
Yokohama users sweeps GT300 podium places.

SUPER GT Round 1

Date	2018/04/07-08
Venue	Okayama Int’l Circuit
Weather	Cloudy
Surface	Dry
Race Lap	81Laps (1Lap = 3,703ｍ)

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• >>Result

The Super GT series, which is the most popular race category in Japan, had its opening race of the 2018 season at Okayama International Circuit. With many hot topics, including ex-Formula One world champion Jenson Button joining the party, the new season will likely be even more exciting.

Yokohama Tire supplies its products to three GT500 cars again this year. And two of them had changes in driver lineups, as Kenta Yamashita became a new partner of Yuji Kunimoto for WedsSport ADVAN LC500 and Mitsunori Takaboshi pairing with Joao Paulo de Oliveira for Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R. The crew of Motul Mugen NSX-GT, Hideki Mutoh and Daisuke Nakajima, remains the same.

In the GT300 class, Yokohama has an outright majority, as 22 out of 29 cars, including the reigning champion Goodsmile Hatsune Miku AMG, use its tires. The target for the Japanese rubber manufacturer in this class is obviously to defend the title.

Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R and WedsSport ADVAN LC500 got through to Q2 in the GT500 qualifying session which was run on the wet track and ended the session in sixth and seventh respectively.

As for the GT300 class, Marco Mapelli, who joined Kazuki Hiramine to drive Manepa Lamborghini GT3 this year, did a great job in Q2. Knowing Huracan very well as a factory Lamborghini driver, the Italian set the fastest time in the session despite that he had driven this track only once before the race weekend when he had taken part in the official testing day.

The sky was clear and the track was totally dry for the race on Sunday. There was a little incident when the warm up session had just ended, as thick white smoke came out from the left rear wheel of WedsSport ADVAN LC500 when the car came back to the pit and it needed a fire extinguisher to control the situation. The smoke was caused by an overheated brake system, so the car could join the starting grids after a minor recovery work.

At the start of the race, one of the cars on the front row didn’t accelerate properly for some reason when the signal turned to green, which caused a near-panic situation in the field behind the car. Oliveira at the wheel of Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R tried to make the most of this situation and actually moved up to third on the opening lap. But his move was judged as a jump start and he was given a drive through penalty.

After serving the penalty on Lap 23, Oliveira found himself in 14th. But he didn’t give up and continued until he was called in to change to Takaboshi after completing 41 laps. Takaboshi rejoined the race in 12th but his pace was good enough to move up through the field during the second half of the race. With ten laps to go, he came up to sixth where he remained until the checkered flag fell.

WedsSport ADVAN LC500 started the race with Yamashita behind the wheel. The highlight during his stint came on Lap 11 when he overtook the ex-Formula One champion Jenson Button who drives in Super GT series this year at the end of back straight.

Thanks to very consistent tire performance, Yamashita could continue to Lap 44, beyond the half way point of the race, before coming in to make the pit stop. However, Kunimoto struggled to keep a good pace in his stint. He was running in sixth for a while but lost a few position during the final part of the race, so he eventually finished in ninth.

Muto in Motul Mugen NSX-GT had a hard time during the first half of the race and wasn’t able to catch up the leading cars. He came in to the pit to change to Nakajima as late as Lap 46 and the team managed to reduce the pit stop time significantly by changing only the left front tire. This paid off and contributed their tenth place finish, which meant earning a valuable championship point.

Hiramine at the wheel of Manepa Lamborghini GT3 made a good start from the pole position for the GT300 class. But his pace wasn’t good enough to pull away from the rest of the field and his lead only lasted for the first seven laps. Then busy lead changes began between a few leading cars.

Sho Tsuboi driving Hoppy 86 MC was among this leading pack but he couldn’t lead the race during his stint. He made the pit stop on Lap 30 to change to Takamitsu Matsui, hoping he could make it to the lead position in the second half of the race. And, thanks in part to the team’s decision not to change tires during the stop, Matsui was leading the race when all cars made their mandatory driver change.

But he wasn’t totally safe at the position, as the Hoppy 86 MC driver had Takashi Kobayashi in Upgarage 86 MC just behind him when he rejoined the race. This was because Kobayashi, who was handed the car from Yuhki Nakayama on Lap 28, also left the pit without changing any tires to minimize the time spent at the stop.

The battle between Matsui and Kobayashi continued for a while but turned in the latter’s favor. Kobayashi managed to overtake Matsui at Double Hairpin on Lap 57 and immediately began to pull away from him.

What was even worse for Matsui was that D’station Porsche with Sven Muller behind the wheel was closing the gap with him. The Porsche was qualified in lowly 20th and Tomonobu Fujii struggled to move up through the field in the first half of the race. But his pace wasn’t that bad, which meant the time gap with the leaders wasn’t too big to close, and the team’s decision to change only rear tires at the pit stop worked. As a result, Muller could make a leap forward and eventually moved up to second when he overtook Matsui at Hairpin curve on Lap 72. This meant the Porsche crew had past as many as 18 cars on their way to podium!

After such heated battles, the podium positions were swept by Yokohama users, which was the best possible start of the season for the Japanese rubber manufacturer.