2022 SUPER GT Round 2 Report

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The second round of the 2022 Super GT series took place at Fuji Speedway in the middle of the Golden Week Holidays in early May. For the last two years, the event has been held behind closed doors or with a limited number of spectators. However, with behavioral restrictions easing, the festive atmosphere of previous times seemed to be regained all over the circuit.

In the GT300 qualifying session, five Yokohama Tire users, three from Group A and two from Group B, went to Q2. But they struggled a little in the second session, and Takashi Kogure in Weibo Primez Lamborghini GT3 claimed the eighth grid, which was the best place among the Yokohama shoed cars. Then Tatsuya Kataoka driving GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG followed in ninth. Nevertheless, the crews still hoped for the next day’s success since their tire choices were made by looking at better performance in the race rather than the qualifying.

As for the GT500 class, like the previous round, both Daiki Sasaki at the wheel of Realize Corporation ADVAN Z and Yuji Kunimoto in WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra survived the fight for Q2, as the former set the fourth-fastest time and the latter the eighth in Q1.

In Q2, the Yokohama shoed drivers adapted to slightly lower track surface temperature, caused by clouds blocking out the sun. While many other drivers started the qualifying attempt after two preparation laps, Sena Sakaguchi, behind the wheel of WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra, did one more lap to warm up his tires sufficiently. This worked really well, and he set the fastest time at the time before improving his own time marginally on the next attempt. Thus, Sakaguchi secured his second pole position in Super GT. For the team, which also got the top qualifying slot in the May event at Fuji, it was the first pole position since last year’s seventh round at Motegi.

And, by the hands of Kohei Hirate, Realize Corporation ADVAN Z sat the second grid, rounding out the Yokohama shoed cars’ front-row lock-out. It was also a repeat of the feat at last year’s Motegi round.

This round was held as the first 450km, 100-lap race with two mandatory refueling stops. So it was only 50km shorter than the race held in the past in this calendar slot, but the teams had to push harder for that reason. And there was no obligation of a tire change or driver change at a stop, which meant a strategic, very short stint was possible. Therefore, the teams’ strategies and the tire characteristics assumed more importance than usual, if the race was executed as it should have been…

WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra started the race from the pole position with Sakaguchi behind the wheel. Beside him on the front row, Sasaki was in the driving seat of Realize Corporation ADVAN Z. Although they lost a few positions during the opening lap because their tires took longer to warm up properly, their pace was consistent and comparable to the leaders once the tires reached the right temperature.

Unlike the other cars that opted for early stops, Sasaki handed the car to Hirate on Lap 34. Sakaguchi extended his stint further to Lap 41 and became the interim leader before making a stop to change to Kunimoto. So their showtime seemed to be starting.

However, only a few laps after the WedsSport-backed Supra’s pit stop, the race control issued Full Course Yellow (FCY) and then deployed the Safety Car (SC) on Lap 44. Ultimately, they had to stop the race with the red flag five laps later because the course marshals needed some time to repair the tire barrier severely damaged by a GT300 car’s crash. The car’s driver was unhurt, and this first stoppage ended about 20 minutes later.

The race restarted from Lap 50 with the SC leading the field, and the green signals were on to resume racing on Lap 53. At the time, Kunimoto was running in tenth and Hirate in 12th, but both of them gained a position two laps later, so things seemed to be going as they intended.

But another big accident happened on Lap 59. One of the leading cars in a close battle tried to avoid a car that slowed down on the pit straight and spun violently, hitting the guard rails on the grandstand side very hard. This immediately caused a red flag, and it took a while to restore the guard rails again. Much to everyone’s relief, the driver could escape the wreck uninjured.

The second stoppage lasted for more than one and a half hours. Finally, as the 18:20 curfew closed in, the race was restarted with only ten minutes left, but the SC led the field until the checkered flag fell at the end of Lap 62. Since the two cars received penalties after the finish, WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra was classified in sixth, and Realize Corporation ADVAN Z in eighth. For them, the race ended before they delivered their full potential, so to say. And the top ten finishers only got half of the usual points because the race was aborted before the leader completed 75% of the prescribed distance.

In the GT300 class, several teams adopted aggressive strategies, making their first of the two mandatory stops within the first four or five laps, even at the end of Lap 1! One of those early stoppers was Kataoka in GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG. The team did only refueling at the first stop with him staying in the car, intending to do an effective one-stop race.

On the other hand, the team of Weibo Primez Lamborghini GT3 took a more straightforward approach. Motojima visited the pit on Lap 35 when he was running in second but continued to drive another stint. He looked to regain positions one after another, but the two red flags denied the prospect, and they had to settle for the fifth place in the end.

Starting from the 14th grid, Kiyoto Fujinami and Joao Paolo de Oliveira, driving Realize Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R, kept the championship lead by finishing the race in seventh.

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