【SUPER GT Round 7 / Sugo】

GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG gets on podium by finishing second.
Motul Mugen NSX-GT makes point finish in GT500.

SUPER GT Round 7

Date	2019/09/21-22
Venue	Sportsland SUGO
Weather	Cloudy – Rain
Surface	Dry – Wet
Race Lap	81Laps (1Lap = 3,704m)

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The seventh round of the 2019 Super GT series was held at Sportsland Sugo, as autumn began to enfold in the area. With only two rounds remaining, the competitors who had taken part in all meetings to date were allowed to reduce their weight handicaps by half in this race.

One of the topics of discussion was how the weight reduction would influence the cars’ performance, especially in the high-speed upgrade final corner. The Sugo round had been the third from the finale race, so the weight reduction rules were applied for the first time at the track.

For the GT300 class, the grouped qualifying method was used in Q1 again since the season opener. Alex Palou at the wheel of McLaren 720S was the fastest driver in Group A, and Hiroki Ohtsu in Modulo Kenwood NSX GT3 beat everyone else in Group B. In total, the Yokohama shoed cars captured 11 places out of 16 for the subsequent Q2 section.

Making the most of the car’s all-around ability, Takamitsu Matsui behind the wheel of Hoppy 86 MC set the third-fastest time in Q2 and became the leading Yokohama Tire user on the grids. Despite missing out the front row places, Matsui and his teammate Kimiya Sato was looking to their first win of the season. With Kazuki Hiramine in Realize Nissan Jidousya Daigakko GT-R coming in fourth, the Yokohama shoed cars filled all places from third to eleventh.

In the GT500 class, Sho Tsuboi in WedsSport ADVAN LC500 ended Q1 in eighth and narrowly secured a place for Q2. By getting some valuable information on the track conditions from Tsuboi, however, Yuji Kunimoto managed to move up to fifth in Q2. So, they were going to start the race from the fifth grid, with expectations for a podium finish.

The tire choice by the teams effectively determined the outcome of the race, as the rain started to fall just before the start. It was drizzle when the cars lined up on the grids, but it was getting heavier by the minute. Among the Yokohama shoed GT500 cars, WedsSport ADVAN LC500 on the 5th grid and Realize Corporation ADVAN GT-R on the 12th chose the dry tires, while Motul Mugen NSX-GT starting from the 13th grid opted for the wet tires.

The race got underway with the Safety Car start procedures, and the racing began from Lap 3. The two Yokohama shoed cars that started the competition with the dry tires had a hard time and lost much ground during the first laps. Hoping for the track conditions to become better soon, they stayed out for several laps, but their anticipation proved to be wrong. The two cars had no choice but to come into the pit to change to the wet tires on Lap 8, and the extra stop meant they were already out of podium contention at this early stage.

On the other hand, Hideki Mutoh behind the wheel of Motul Mugen NSX-GT kept up with the leading cars and move up to seventh at a time. They continued to fight for a better position even after changing to Daisuke Nakajima on Lap 37. While the conditions were getting worse, as the rain became heavier and the temperatures dropped, Nakajima never made a mistake and finished the race in ninth by overtaking an opponent with three laps to go.

WedsSport ADVAN LC500 had to serve a drive-through penalty for a pit work infringement at the earlier tire change. Because of this, they were lapped by the leader very early, but Kunimoto continued to test the tires and collect the data on the wet track, in view of utilizing the information in future races. He changed to Tsuboi on Lap 35, and the new set of tires the team put on the car at the stop worked well. So, his pace was good enough compared to the leading cars, but the delay in the early stage was too significant to recover. Consequently, Tsuboi finished in 13th, three laps down from the winner.

Realize Corporation ADVAN GT-R started with Jann Mardenborough in the driving seat. As mentioned above, the car dropped to the bottom of the field very early. They eventually completed the race in 15th, but it was because they made four pit stops, including the driver change to Mitsunori Takaboshi, to test a few types of wet tires to collect some data.

The tire choices at the start also decided the GT300 class race. Among the leading Yokohama shoed cars, Hoppy 86 MC on the third grid started the race with the dry tires. Realize Nissan Jidousya Daigakko GT-R, which Hiramine shared with Sacha Fenestraz, and GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG, starting from the sixth grid with Nobuteru Taniguchi and Tatsuya Kataoka on board, chose the wet tires.

Hiramine and Kataoka gained a position each soon after the start, and then came up to second and fourth on Lap 4 respectively, whereas Sato lost a lot of ground. Particularly, Kataoka’s pace was stunning, as he was third on Lap 9 and overtook Hiramine two laps later.

After a while, Hiramine came into the pit to change to Fenestraz on Lap 34 when he was in fifth. Soon after that, a GT500 car went off the track, which required the Safety Car to come out. By contrast, Kataoka changed to Taniguchi just before the Safety Car period, and they kept the second place.

Fenestraz was still running in fifth. He gained a position by a GT300 car’s pit stop on Lap 53 but lost the place for another car later, so the Frenchman received the checkered flag in fifth.

With this result, Realize Nissan Jidohsya Daigakko GT-R still has a mathematical possibility to win the championship at the season finale, and the same applies to the second-place finisher of this race, GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG.

The sixth-place went to the Shuan Thong/Shinya Michimi pair in Eva RT Test Type-01 X Works GT-R.