SUZUKA GT300km
3.20 sat / 21 sun
Round 1 SUZUKA GT300km The curtain was raised on the 1999 season of the All-Japan Grand Touring Car Championship with the running of the qualifying sessions for Round 1 at the Suzuka Circuit in Mie Prefecture on March 20th. A total of 35 high-performance GT cars competed to for the pole position in Sunday's race. Among the drivers in this year's lineup of talent is Ukyo Katayama, who returns to the national racing scene this year following his retirement from F-1. Katayama is sharing the wheel of a Toyota Supra with Toshio Suzuki for the Toyota Tom's Castrol Team. Two 60-minute qualifying sessions, one each in the morning and afternoon, were divided into three 20-minute segments : the first 20 minutes for the running of the GT500 class, the second 20 minutes for the GT300 class and the final 20 minutes for combined classes. The green light for the morning session was given under wet conditions. But tension remained high and excitement filled the day as each driver put forth a best effort to claim the first pole of the year. The rainfall was changing throughout the session, and every team struggled to time the best moment for a best time attack. Gambling heavily on the course conditions, several drivers wound up spinning off the track. Most cars managed to recover and continue the time trials, but the No. 25 Toyota MR2 driven by Morio Nitta crashed hard at the 130R" corner causing the team to retire from the first session before it ended. Fortunately, repairs could be finished in time for running in the afternoon session. Three prominent models contested hard for the pole in the GT500 class. The pace was set by Jyuichi Wakisaka in a Honda NSX, with a fastest lap of 2'13.037", just ahead of Erik Comas, the 1998 GTC champion, who clocked a 2'14.698" lap in a Nissan Skyline GT-R. Comas is teamed up with Satoshi Motoyama, the 1998 Formula Nippon Series champion. Of the Toyota teams, it was Masanori Sekiya who turned in the fastest lap of the morning, giving his Supra a fourth place birth on the grid sandwiched between the NSXs of Tom Coronel and Akira Iida.  The rainfall increased as the day progressed, and none of the teams in either of the classes was able to improve on morning session times in the afternoon. As the result, the No. 18 Honda NSX of driver pair Jyuichi Wakisaka/Katsumoto Kaneishi will start from the pole in Sunday's race, and the No. 81 Silvia of Hideo Fukuyama/Nobuyuki Ohyagi claimed the lead position of the GT 300 class. After the sessions were over, Wakisaki commented, "I am very happy that we were able to get the pole position. The car set-up and decision to use intermediate tyres were made in discussions with Kaneishi. And we hit the target." |
