2017.05.20

A strong RAYBRIG NSX-GT wins pole position of the season!

Round 3 Autopolis : Qualifying GT500

The official qualifying for the SUPER GT IN KYUSHU 300 km, Round 3 of the 2017 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, was held at the AUTOPOLIS Circuit (Oita Pref.) on May 20. In the GT500 class, Naoki Yamamoto drove the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX-GT to his personal first SUPER GT pole position. In the GT300 class, Takamitsu Matsui drove last year’s champion car, the No. 25 VivaC 86 MC, to the team’s first PP of the season.

 

 

Qualifying day for Round 3 of the SUPER GT series at Autopolis was blessed with clear skies and quite warm temperatures. Due to a Red Flag delay in the GT300 class Q1 held prior to it, the GT500 Q1 started 10 minutes late at exactly 2:00 in the afternoon. Of the 15 cars starting, the fastest eight would qualify for the Q2 session in the GT500 class.
Even after the track was opened for the Q1 session, none of the cars left the pit for a while. It wasn’t until five minutes into the 15-minute Q1 session that cars began to move out along the pit road, and the first to make a move was the No. 16 MOTUL MUGEN NSX-GT (Hideki Mutoh) running on Yokohama tires. Next came the Dunlop-mounted No. 64 Epson Modulo NSX-GT (Bertrand Baguette), the Yokohama tired No. 24 Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R (Daiki Sasaki) and the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda) on Michelin tires. Finally, at about halfway into the session the Lexus LC500 cars began to move all at once unto the track.

With less than three minutes remaining in the period, it was the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX-GT (Takuya Izawa) that recorded a top time of 1’39.665, but that was quickly beaten by the No. 6 WAKO'S 4CR LC500 (Kazuya Oshima) with a time of 1’35.549, and then again by the No. 1 DENSO KOBELCO SARD LC500 (Kohei Hitate) with a 1’35.310, soon after which the No. 36 au TOM'S LC500 (James Rossiter) stole the top spot with a 1’34.962.
It was at this point that the last of the 15 cars out on the track and last to begin its time attacks, the No. 17 KEIHIN NSX-GT (Takashi Kogure), crashed on the fourth turn. Thus losing its chance to run a timed lap, car No. 17 ended the session in last place.
Meanwhile, car No. 100 ran a lap of 1’34.333 to take the top spot again. The No. 38 ZENT CERUMO LC500 (Hiroaki Ishiura) then ran a 1’35.084 lap and Hirate in car No. 1 ran a 1’35.227 to move into 3rd and 4th positions respectively.
With these results, the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX-GT ended the Q1 session and qualified for Q2 with the fastest time, as it had in the morning practice. Despite the strength the NSX-GT cars showed at Autopolis, only two would qualify for Q2 due to the crash by car No. 17. As for the LC500 cars, all except No. 19 qualified for Q2. Among the GT-R cars, only No. 46 qualified for Q2.

 

 

Now it was time for the GT500 Q2. With eight minutes remaining in the 12-minute session, the teams began to bring their cars out of the pit garages. The first to go out on the track was the No. 6 WAKO'S 4CR LC500 (Andrea Caldarelli). Then, with seven minutes remaining, the other cars began to come out onto the track one after another, and after two warm-up laps, they all began to run their qualifying laps.
As the clock reached two minutes before the end of the session, the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto) was the first to post a target time of 1’36.193, but then on the next lap Yamamoto improved on his time significantly to a decisive 1’33.740 that seated him firmly in top position on the board.
The 2nd-place qualifier was the only GT-R to qualify for Q2, the No. 46 S Road CRAFTSPORTS GT-R (Satoshi Motoyama), posting a time of 1’34.331. This put a GT-R on the front row of the starting grid for the second time in a row, following the 2nd-place qualifying performance car No. 23 at Fuji Speedway in Round 2. Of the LC500 car, the fastest qualifier in 3rd place was the No. 1 DENSO KOBELCO SARD LC500 (Heikki Kovalainen) with a time of 1’34.749, meaning that one car from each maker finished in the top three. The 4th-place qualifier was the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO LC500 (Yuji Tachikawa) with a 1’34.841, and 5th place went to the No. 16 MOTUL MUGEN NSX-GT (Daisuke Nakajima) with a 1’34.858, the last car to break the 1’35 barrier.

This was Yamamoto’s first personal pole position in SUPER GT competition. For the Honda NSX-GT, it was the second PP of the season, following the one in the opening round by the ARTA NSX-GT. For the RAYBRIG NSX-GT, it was the team’s first pole position in 11 years, since the 7th round of the 2006 season.
Although the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO LC500 had recorded the 4th fastest time in the Q2 session, its last and fastest lap was disqualified because it was ruled that it had been run under the Yellow Flag that was shown when the No. 36 au TOM'S LC500 (Kazuki Nakajima) ran off the track, and this ruling moved the No. 16 MOTUL MUGEN NSX-GT up into 4th place for tomorrow’s starting grid.

 

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