【SUPER GT Round 2 / Fuji】

Syntium Apple Lotus takes maiden victory in GT300.
It’s Kato’s first in ten years whereas returnee Yanagida wins in only second race with him!

SUPER GT Round 2

Date	2020/08/08-09
Venue	Fuji Speedway
Weather	Cloudy
Surface	Dry
Race Lap	66Laps (1Lap = 4,563m)

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The 2020 Super GT Series had its second race at Fuji Speedway again, with an only three-week gap from the opening round. This busy schedule was, of course, because of the heavily revised calendar due to COVID-19.

With Baiu, the rainy season in Japan, having just left, the chance of rain was low during the race weekend. But the temperatures soared, and it told of the arrival of hot summer.

The qualifying sessions were run on Saturday, as per the standard weekend format. The GT300 class competitors were divided into two groups for Q1, and the top eight from each group were allowed to go on to Q2.

Masataka Yanagida’s performance in Q1, behind the wheel of Syntium Apple Lotus, was remarkable, as he was the only driver who set a lap time below 1 minute 36 seconds in Group B. The team expected an excellent qualifying position because his partner, Hiroki Kato, also lapped at a similar pace in the official practice session.

Including them, there were nine Yokohama Tire user teams, in a total of two groups, who went on to Q2.

Kato actually bettered Yanagida’s best lap time in Q2, but two other drivers beat him. Therefore, Syntium Apple Lotus took the third grid after all, which was still good enough to fight for the class win.

Runup Rivaux GT-R, which was involved in an unfortunate accident in the opening round, in the hands of the Takayuki Aoki/Yusaku Shibata pair sat on the sixth grid. They were followed by the third-place finishers three weeks ago, Natsu Sakaguchi and Yuya Hiraki, in Mach Syaken GTnet MC86 Mach-go in seventh. And Realize Nissan Automobile Technical College GT-R with Kiyoto Fujinami and Joao Paulo de Oliveira at the wheel came in eighth.

In the GT500 class, Ukyo Sasahara in Red Bull Motul Mugen NSX-GT looked to survive the battle for Q2, but he missed it out by only 0.1 seconds in the last minutes of the session. With his partner, Hideki Muto, he looked to deliver a better result in the race from the ninth grid.

WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Ritomo Miyata) ended the qualifying session in 14th, and Realize Corporation ADVAN GT-R (Mitsunori Takaboshi/Jann Mardenborough) followed in 15th.

The sky was covered with light clouds on the race day, but there was little concern about rain. So the track remained dry throughout the day, with the air/track temperatures at 30/40 degrees Celsius, which was very similar to the conditions on Saturday.

Miyata in WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra gained two positions on the first lap. Some set up changes on the car made after the qualifying seemed to work so that he could continue in a good and consistent pace. On Lap 25, he was the first in the GT500 class to make a pit stop to change to Kunimoto.

With this early stop paying off, Kunimoto, who also showed a good pace, found himself running in eighth on Lap 36. He even said on the radio, “finishing in top 5 is within sight,” but then the car had a driveshaft failure. While he could bring the damaged car back to the pit, there was no choice but to retire at the end of Lap 46.

When Red Bull Motul Mugen NSX-GT started the race, Sasahara was behind its wheel again. After losing a position on the opening lap, he could manage the gap with the cars behind him until the driver change to Mutoh on Lap 28. The pit stop took a little longer than usual, which cost them a few more positions, but Mutoh then moved up to 11th, mainly thanks to the problems that hit cars ahead of him.

He remained in the same position until the end of the race. But the car was classified in tenth in the final result because the car which finished in fifth was given a time penalty for a “dangerous driving” during the race.

In contrast to the WedsSport backed Supra’s strategy, Realize Corporation ADVAN GT-R extended the Takaboshi’s stint to Lap 35. As a result, he came up to as high as second at one time, but it was only an interim position. So, when Mardenborough went out to the track after the pit stop, he ran in 14th. After gaining a place by a retirement, Mardenborogh’s fine overtaking on Lap 52 pushed himself up to 12th, which was the car’s finishing position.

In the GT300 class, Syntium Apple Lotus looked promising, as Kato at the wheel of the car moved up to second in the second corner after the start. He remained in the leading pack for a while, but he deliberately stayed behind the leader to save his tires. These smart tactics paid off, so he could extend his stint to 30 laps, which was four laps longer than the then race leader.

Thus, Yanagida was effectively leading the race when he left the pit after the driver change. And he had a comfortable four-second cushion against the car in second when all competitors completed the mandatory pit stop on Lap 33.

So he could cruise to the checkered flag by managing the gap with the cars behind him. For Yanagida, this was a victory in the only second race after joining the team, whereas it was Kato’s first in ten years. Also, their Lotus made its first point finish by winning the race!

Realize Nissan Automobile Technical College GT-R finished in fifth. The fourth-place finisher in the previous round collected good points again, even though they haven’t got on the podium yet. GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG, driven by Nobuteru Taniguchi and Tatsuya Kataoka, was running in sixth at a time. However, the car was forced to make an unscheduled pit stop when their aggressive car set up backfired and had to settle for the lowly 27th.