【SUPER GT Round 2 / Fuji】

GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG comes in fifth by bold tire strategy.
Three Yokohama shoed GT500 cars had hard times but finish race.

SUPER GT Round 2

Date	2018/05/03-04
Venue	Fuji Speedway
Weather	Fine
Surface	Dry
Race Lap	110Laps (1Lap = 4,563ｍ)

• >>Report
• >>Result

The second round of the 2018 Super GT series was held at Fuji Speedway during Golden Week holidays in May. As usual for this event, a huge crowd of fans came to watch the race, enjoying the weather at least on the race day.

But the qualifying day, May 3rd, wasn’t favored by good weather. Although thunderstorm had passed early in the morning, a thick fog came and covered the whole race track. Because of this, the official practice session had to be delayed and shortened to just 30 minutes.

And the qualifying session after that also had to be run as a ‘standard’ 20-minute session, which meant it didn’t employ the usual knock-out system. For the qualifying session, the teams were allowed to use two sets of tires and anyone of the team’s registered drivers could make qualifying attempts.

In the GT300 class, GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG qualified in fourth, followed by Syntium Apple Lotus in fifth. Ritomo Miyata at the wheel of Syntium LMcorsa RC F GT3 also performed well and set the sixth fastest time, despite him being entrusted with the important task of qualifying the car for the first time in his only second Super GT race.

Motul Mugen NSX-GT, in the GT500 class, secured the sixth grid which was the highest place among Honda teams. WedsSport ADVAN LC500 ended the session in eighth and Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R in 15th.

The weather dramatically changed and the sky was clear on the race day. WedsSport ADVAN LC500 started the race with Yuji Kunimoto behind the wheel. He had been in a close battle from the beginning and moved up to seventh on Lap 14. Four laps later, however, he was forced to make unscheduled pit stop due to a problem on the left rear tire.

After tire change and refueling, Kunimoto rejoined the race, one lap behind the leader. But he didn’t give up and continued until Lap 49 when he came in to change to Kenta Yamashita.

Yamashita’s pace looked good but another tire problem occurred on Lap 85, so he came in to the pit to change the tire and to hand the car to Kunimoto again. But, as the delay due to an extra pit stop was too much to make up for them, WedsSport ADVAN LC500 ended the race in 12th.

Joao Paulo de Oliveira in Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R at the start struggled to pick up his pace and remained in 15th throughout his stint. Then Mitsunori Takaboshi who drove for the second stint from Lap 39 endured his part of the hard time but he had to come back to the pit on Lap 65 because he felt something unusual on one of the tires. This extra stop cost them the point finish and the car finished the race in 13th at the end of the day.

Hideki Muto was the first stint driver of Motul Mugen NSX-GT. His pace was really good and he kept the sixth place, where he started the race, until the driver change to Daisuke Nakajima on Lap 33. Nakajima lost a few positions during his stint but managed to overtake one of his closest rivals on Lap 67 to move up to ninth. Soon after that, he had a problem with his left rear tire, which caused him to make an unscheduled pit stop on Lap 69.

They made the second driver change after completing their 85th lap. Now Muto was at the wheel again for the final part of the race, but he also had a mishap. On Lap 98, he went off the track because he drove over some debris, so he had to come in to the pit to check whether the car had any serious damage. Muto went back to the track after that but all he could do was just to continue until he saw the checkered flag. The car was classified in 14th, the last of the GT500 class finishers.

Tatsuya Kataoka in GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG improved his position to third in the GT300 class during the opening lap and Hiroki Kato behind the wheel of Syntium Apple Lotus followed.

In contrast, Miyata’s Syntium LMcorsa RC F GT3 fell back to eighth and then he was passed by D’station Porsche driver Tomonobu Fujii on Lap 2. Miyata, Fujii, and Hiroki Otsu at the wheel of Modulo Kenwood NSX GT3 soon started to fight hard for seventh but Otsu became the leader of this pack on Lap 5.

Kataoka, who was running in third for a while, lost the place on Lap 17. However, the team extended his stint until Lap 40, as other leading cars were forced to make their pit stops earlier than expected. He actually led the class for the last two laps of his stint and handed the car to Nobuteru Taniguchi.

At the stop, the team chose to change only two tires on the left-hand side to minimize the time spent in the pit lane, but Taniguchi found himself still in fourth when all GT300 cars completed their first stops.

Taniguchi stayed on the track even longer than his partner did and changed to Kataoka on Lap 83, after leading the class for ten laps. And, surprisingly, the team changed only left-hand side tires again this time, which meant the same right-hand side tires were used throughout the race!

This bold and unusual tire strategy looked to work. But Kataoka was overtaken by one of the closest rivals at 100 R Corner soon after the pit stop and he was in fourth again. Even worse, he lost another position just three laps to go, which meant GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG ended the race in fifth.

D’station Porsche finished in sixth, improving three places from the ninth grid, and Syntium LMcorsa RC F GT3 followed in seventh. Modulo Kenwood NSX GT3 earned its first championship points only in the second race for the car and rookie driver Otsu by finishing in eighth.