【SUPER GT Round 6 / Autopolis】

McLaren 720S claims second place under changing weather conditions.
Manepa Lamborghini GT3 now second in championship by finishing third.

SUPER GT Round 6

Date	2019/09/07-08
Venue	Autopolis
Weather	Cloudy – Rain
Surface	Dry – Wet
Race Lap	65Laps (1Lap = 4,674m)

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The 2019 Super GT series, which has been providing plenty of intense battles, is nearing the finale. The sixth round, the third from the last, was held at Autopolis. The track in Kyushu is known as a technically challenging circuit with a significant elevation change in a lap of it.

Until this round, the competitors have had to carry handicap weights which were equal to twice the championship points they had earned in kilograms. Therefore, the leading teams in the title fight had to expect a tough race here.

With typhoons hitting Japan one after another before the race weekend, the biggest concern was the weather but the conditions on Saturday, September 7th, was quite comfortable. When the qualifying session began, the air/track temperatures stayed around 26/35 degrees Celsius. The totally dry track surfaces were ideal for the battle for the pole position, although the sky was overcast

In Q1 for GT300, Hiroki Kato in Syntium Apple Lotus and Takayuki Aoki at the wheel of Runup Rivaux GT-R were the top two, as they had no handicap weights. However, Takamitsu Matsui sharing Hoppy 86 MC with Kimiya Sato set the fastest time in Q2, which was 0.4 seconds faster than those for Kato and Aoki, and secured the pole position. They have always performed well in Autopolis, and this was the third consecutive pole position on this track!

Behind him, Tomonobu Fujii/Joao Paulo de Oliveira pair in D’station Vantage GT3 and Shaun Thong/Shinya Michimi pair’s Eva RT Test Type-01 Works GT-R took the third and fifth grids respectively, since they also enjoyed the lightness of no handicap weights. GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG with Nobuteru Taniguchi and Tatsuya Kataoka at the wheel came in sixth. And all of them were looking to the first podium finish of the season.

In the GT500 class, Sho Tsuboi in WedsSport ADVAN LC500 ended Q1 in ninth and Hideki Mutoh in Motul Mugen NSX-GT in 11th, which meant they failed to make their ways into Q2. On the other hand, Realize Corporation ADVAN GT-R was sixth in Q1 with Mitsunori Takaboshi’s best time, and then Jann Mardenborough went up to third in Q2. Their third grid was the season’s best-tying qualifying result for a Yokohama shoed car.

The race on Sunday, September 8th, got underway on the dry track conditions, while the forecast said rain would start to fall during the race. Starting from the third grid, Mardenborough drove aggressively in the early laps and managed to move up to second on Lap 12.

The Briton kept pushing to try to catch the race leader. When the rain finally came around Lap 30, some of other leading cars made their pit stops but Realize Corporation ADVAN GT-R opted to stay out for the moment. Then there was an accident on the track, which required the deployment of the Safety Car. This meant that Mardenborough lost the gap with the cars that had already done their pit stops and lost a lot of positions when he made his own stop.

On Lap 40 when the Safety Car period ended, the ADVAN shoed GT-R came into the pit and Mardenborough handed the car to Takaboshi. Considering the whole second half of the race, the team put the slick tires on the car. Takaboshi struggled for a while after rejoining the race because the track was still wet, but he brought the car home and classified in ninth, enduring the difficult conditions.

WedsSport ADVAN LC500 started the race with Yuji Kunimoto behind the wheel. He was running in eighth in the first half of the race, and the team decided to give the car a set of rain tires at the pit stop. Unfortunately, when Tsuboi left the box, he hit a GT300 car in the pit lane, causing some damage on the front bodywork on the left-hand of his vehicle. Although the car wasn’t in perfect conditions, Tsuboi’s pace was still fast enough, and he came up to third at a time. However, as the track became drier with the time, his speed with the wet tires dropped, so the car eventually finished the race in eighth.

Mutoh in Motul Mugen NSX-GT had a mishap even before starting the race. He hit the car in front of him which abruptly slowed down during the formation lap and damaged his own car’s bodywork at front left corner. On top of this, Mutoh had to serve a drive-through penalty for the incident, losing a lot of ground in the early stage.

The team gave the slick tires to Daisuke Nakajima for the second half of the race at the pit stop. This decision backfired, however, as the amount of water on the track was still high, and Nakajima couldn’t pick up his pace. So, they called him in to change to the wet tires on Lap 49, knowing the extra stop meant further delay. At the end of the day, Motul Mugen NSX-GT ended the race in 14th, two laps down from the winner.

Starting from the GT300 class pole position, Sato in Hoppy 86 MC led the race for a while until he gave way to one of the main rivals on Lap 11. Then he later dropped to fourth. Meanwhile, as the rain started to fall, Kataoka in GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG picked up his pace and managed to become the race leader on Lap 17. And, a few laps later, Oliveira in D’station Vantage GT3 also came up to second.

The rain once eased off but became heavier around Lap 30. Considering such conditions, the crew of D’station Vantage GT3 decided to make the pit stop earlier than others. But they lost a few precious seconds because the tire change on the left rear corner didn’t go smoothly at the stop.

Then there were two Safety Car periods which drastically influenced many competitors, as was the case of Realize Corporation ADVAN GT-R in the GT500 class. The tire choice at the pit stop also affected the positions of each car in the second half of the race very much.

When all those factors settled down, Manepa Lamborghini GT3 was running in second after starting the race from the 22nd grid. The starting driver, Yuya Motojima, drove well to leave the crowded pack and an early driver change to Takashi Kogure seemed to pay off. They even temporarily led the race when the leader at the time was penalized on Lap 52.

Following Kogure, Alex Palou who shared McLaren 720S with Seiji Ara moved up to second. Qualified in lowly 21st, Ara had steadily come up through the field, utilizing the car’s superior wet performance, before changing to Palou. And the Spaniard overtook Kogure on Lap 57 to lead the race.

It was unlucky for them, however, that the rain had already stopped then and the track surfaces dried quicker than expected. So, the eventual winner with the dry tires caught up with them with only three laps to go, Palou and Kogure couldn’t fend it off at all.

Nevertheless, McLaren 720S finished the race in second and Manepa Lamborghini GT3 in third. Plus, GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG came in fourth, after playing a furious catch-up in the closing phase. After these kinds of results, the podium lockout by Yokohama shoed cars in the next Sugo round seems to be quite possible.