2017.06.30

[Official test at Suzuka: Day 1] MOTUL AUTECH GT-R with GT500 best lap time! B-MAX NDDP GT-R tops GT300

Official test: Suzuka Circuit 6/30 (Fri)

SUPER GT's fourth official test of the year started on June 30th at Suzuka Circuit. The test offers an important opportunity for the teams to prepare for the Round 6 Suzuka on August 26th and 27th as well as the second half of the season, but the shift of rain front to the north brought unfortunate rain to Suzuka in the morning. As the track dried up in the later part of the afternoon session after the rain stopped, No.23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda / Ronnie Quintarelli) clocked a fastest lap time of 1 min 47.944 sec. In the GT300 class, No.3 B-MAX NDDP GT-R (Kazuki Hoshino / Mitsunori Takaboshi) marked a best lap time of the class with 1 min 58.379 sec. The official test will continue until tomorrow, July 1st.

 

 

 

One-two by NSX-GT in rainy morning. KEIHIN NSX-GT clocking fastest lap time

Morning session was in a complete wet condition. Being a valuable testing opportunity, all cars went out to the track raising splashes of water, but quite a number of teams pulled their car in after a lap and stayed in. Meantime, Mardenborough in No.12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Hironobu Yasuda / Jann Mardenborough) quickly cut under the 2-minute mark and emerged to the top of the timing monitor. First red flag of the day came out when the session had not even reached 30 minutes from the start after a car came to a stop just after the Dunlop corner. Session resumed in 10 minutes, but all cars came back to the pits after a short run as the rain got heavier pouring down on the track.
Cars went back on the track when the rain got lighter at round 60 minutes into the session. At about 15 minutes later Saga driving No.31 TOYOTA PRIUS apr GT (Koki Saga / Rintaro Kubo) crashed his car in Turn 1. Red flag was shown for the second time. Rain stayed calm and the track condition, though wet, gradually improved after the crashed car was recovered. From there, the lap times improved rapidly on each car.

Among the pack, the NSX-GT fleet was showing good performance on the track, especially Kobayashi in No.8 ARTA NSX-GT (Tomoki Nojiri / Takashi Kobayashi), Izawa driving No.100 RAYBRIG NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto / Takuya Izawa), and Tsukakoshi at the wheel of No.17 KEIHIN NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi / Takashi Kogure) were in action and continuously renewed their bast lap times until the session reached checker flag. At the end, it was KEIHIN NSX-GT (Tsukakoshi) marking the fastest lap time of the morning with 1 min 57.320 sec followed by RAYBRIG NSX-GT (Izawa). Tsukakoshi, who marked the top time of the morning, explained his feeling about the car, "We didn't make any special changes in the setup of the car. I don't know how the rivals were doing, but it's true that our car felt good."
Project leader Masahiro Saeki, who oversees the whole Honda fleet, was giving a high remark on NSX-GT in wet, "I have an impression that it's always good, not only at Suzuka, but in rain.
Kovalainen in No.1 DENSO KOBELCO SARD LC500 (Heikki Kovalainen / Kohei Hirate) broke into the NSX-GT pack and placed third. ARTA NSX-GT and No.65 Epson Modulo NSX-GT (Bertrand Baguette / Kosuke Matsuura. Lap time by Baguette) were fourth and fifth, respectively. CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Lap time by Yasuda) was the fastest among all Nissan GT-Rs and placed seventh overall.

 

 

Three makers share Top 3 in dried up afternoon session

Rain stopped falling in the afternoon, and the track slowly changed condition from wet to dry. The car that was showing good run in such condition was No.23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda / Ronnie Quintarelli), which was marking impressive lap times at the test organized by the tire manufacturers at Suzuka on Jun 6th and 7th. Quintarelli was always at the highest position of the timing monitor in the mid-stage of the session after the track got mostly dry and the cars started put dry tires. It was also Quintarelli who lapped in the 1 min 48 sec mark first, but eventually he was the only driver to mark a lap time in the 1 min 47 sec mark and became the overall fastest lap time of the day with 1 min 47.944 sec.
No.17 KEIHIN NSX-GT, marking the top lap time of the rainy morning session, continued to show impressive runs on dry track in the afternoon and marked the second fastest time with Kogure at the wheel. With No.38 ZENT CERUMO LC500 (Yuji Tachikawa / Hiroaki Ishiura. Lap time by Tachikawa) finishing at third, three manufacturers shared the top three positions.

"(No.23 car) got the top time, but it was more from the good tires Micheline prepared rather than from the improvement of the car. Of course, it's true that we were successful in setting up the car to get the performance out. But we have two races before the actual stage (Round 6 Suzuka) in August and I have no idea how it (the handicap weight) will turn out. We shouldn't sit back and relax even though we got the top time." Team manager Yutaka Suzuki of NISMO, who is also responsible for vehicle development, was bracing himself up as he commented.
Two former F1 drivers who are attracting all the attention for participating in the Round 6 Suzuka as third driver, Jenson Button and Kamui Kobayashi, driving No16 MOTUL MUGEN NSX-GT (Hideki Mutoh / Daisuke Nakajima) and No.19 WedsSport ADVAN LC500 (Yuhi Sekiguchi / Yuji Kunimoto), respectively, also took part in the test. Kamui drove one time each in the morning and afternoon for a total of 13 laps. Button proactively got in the car and ran 36 laps after the track got dry in the afternoon.

 

    

 

 

 

 

GT300 fastest claimed by LEON CVSTOS AMG in rainy morning and B-MAX NDDP GT-R in dry afternoon

In the GT300 class, the story continued from the previous official test at SUGO (6/17 - 18) and FIA GT3 cars dominated the top positions. No.65 LEON CVSTOS AMG (Haruki Kurosawa / Naoya Gamou. Lap time by Gamou) set a top time at 2 min 7.092 sec on the wet track surface in the morning. No.21 Hitotsuyama Audi R8 LMS (Richard Lyons / Masataka Yanagida. Lap time by Lyons) followed at second place.
Marking the top time of the morning with about 1.5 sec gap against the second place car, Gamou commented, "Car setup and the tires matched the wet condition. I think we still need to run extensively on dry track to get ready for the real race, but I will leave that to Kurosawa." Gamou handed over the baton to Haruki Kurosawa as he could only run in the morning session due to a schedule issue.

FIA-GT3 cars were the only cars marking the top time in the afternoon session again. Top place was frequently exchanged during the session between No.51 JMS P.MU LMcorsa RC F GT3 (Yuichi Nakayama / Sho Tsuboi), No.60 SYNTIUM LMcorsa RC F GT3 (Akira Iida / Hiroki Yoshimoto), and No.4 GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG (Nobuteru Taniguchi / Tatsuya Kataoka).
However, at the end it was Takaboshi in No.3 B-MAX NDDP GT-R (Kazuki Hoshino / Mitsunori Takaboshi) whipping out the best lap time of the day. Takaboshi again marked the fastest time of the first day of testing at Suzuka just like he did at previous SUGO test (fastest in the class of 2 days overall).

 

    

 

 

Always going well at Suzuka (including the tire manufacturer test). Car felt very nice after it became dry. But this was just a one-shot lap time and we were not able to do long (running more laps) test at all. That's why, tomorrow if it becomes dry condition, we need to do a long test and try a few sets of tires which we couldn't check today. We struggled in the first few races, but the car improved a lot because everybody at the team worked very hard. I don't know what kind of conditions (handicap weight, amount of fuel on the car, etc.) the rivals were running under, but if I were to assess (today's performance) based on us, then I think it was a good test.

 

If I consider this as a practice, then it was a good practice, but I don't know how I should assess the fact we got the top time... We have two races before the real stage (Round 6) at Suzuka, so I don't know how many points we will be scoring by then and how many kg (of handicap weight) we will have. I don't think there will be the definite advantage like from SUGO, but I don't feel safe and comfortable because I think the mother-chassis 86 (No.25 VivaC 86 MC, etc.) would be fast at Suzuka and AMGs (No.4 GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG, No.65 LEON CVSTOS AMG, etc.) are especially fast around the corners among the FIA GT3 cars. Plus, although we got the top time, the condition and balance of our car are not quite there. That's why I think we need to work on refining the setup of the car if it's dry condition tomorrow.

Page Top