Close Qualifying Sessions End with Sekiya/Kurosawa Sitting on the Pole

No.36 Castrol TOM'S SUPRA

Round 7 MOTEGI GT CHAMPION RACE
Qualify Report / 24 Oct. '99

The Saturday qualifying sessions for the final round of the 1999 All-Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (GTC) were held under fine blue sky at the 4.8km Twin Ring Motegi Circuit, where a total entry of 37 cars battled for pole position. Each session divided into the usual three segments, the GT500class took control of the track for the first 20 minutes. An all-out dual ensued immediately between the driver teams of Erik Comas/Satoshi Motoyama in the No.1 SKYLINE GT-R and Masanori Sekiya/Takuya Kurosawa in the No.36 SUPRA, showing the tension of the teams in contention for the championship. (Motoyama, however, is not working for the championship as he missed Round 2 of the season, thus sitting 8 points behind Comas.) Motoyama was the lead car at the pit road exit, with Kurosawa right behind him, waiting for the start of the session.

The green light for the session start was given at 10:45 and the cars took to the track. Kurosawa set the pace immediately with a quick 1'48.868 putting his name and car number at the top of the timing monitor. The No.35 car driven by teammates Pierre-Henri Raphanel/Shinichi Yamaji held second momentarily until Michigami in the No.16 Honda NSX put clocked a lap time of 1'48.596 and slipped in behind the leader. At the end of the first 20-minute segment, the lineup was Kurosawa in the No.36 car, followed by Michigami in the No.16 NSX, Raphanel in the No.35 SUPRA, Noda in the No.6 SUPRA and Motoyama in the No.1 SKYLINE GT-R.

The GT300class solo time of the first segment got underway at 11:05, with Dominik Schwager setting a best lap of 1'58.241. In spite of carrying the heaviest handicap weight possible (80kg), the points leader, Takeshi Tsuchiya (and co-driver Yuji Ide) also put in an impressive time of 1'57.485 in the No.15 SILVIA. Of the main championship contenders, Manabu Orido (and co-driver Takahiko Hara) drove to No.19 CELICA into fourth, while Morio Nitta in the No.25 Toyota MR2 followed immediately behind.

During the final 20 minutes of the first session with both classes open to the circuit, Hideo Fukuyama improved the No.81 SILVIA's best lap to 1'58.268, having to settle for third place in the class.

A number of teams improved on their morning lap times during the afternoon session. Of special notice was the No.64 NSX driven by Tom Coronel. Having suffered clutch problems at the beginning of the morning session, the winner of the previous round drove a fine lap of 1'49.368 while carrying a 90kg handicap weight. The time sixth fastest in the session and set the car in 10th on the grid for the race. Jyuichi Wakisaka/Katsutomo Kaneishi, another candidate driver pair for the championship, placed their No.18 NSX in the 12-spot on the grid while toting a 90kg handicap weight as well.

Michael Krumm in the No. 2 SKYLINE GT-R ran well throughout the day, with the German improving lap times in the afternoon, taking second in the session and fourth on the grid overall.

No.15 Xanavi ARTA SILVIA

In the GT300class, Morio Nitta gave an excellent effort improving remarkably from a 1'58.393 in the morning session to 1'57.653 in the afternoon. But skill of Tsuchiya in the smooth running No.15 SILVIA proved too much, and at the day's end it was Tsuchiya/Ide sitting on the pole. Nitta/Takagi and the No.25 Toyota MR2 had to settle for second on the grid followed by the No.19 CELICA driven by Orido/Hara; the top three teams on the grid sitting exactly the same as their points standings for the championship.

The final outcome of the GT500class found the No.36 SUPRA and drivers Sekiya/Kurosawa in pole position followed by Nakako/Michigami in the No.16 NSX and Raphanel/Yamaji in the No.35 SUPRA third. A total of 10 cars clocked times under the GTC course record and 12 cars ran within 1sec of each other, suggesting a very close fight in the Sunday race.

---

GT500
Kurosawa commented after the afternoon session, "As we are behind Erik Comas by 12 points for winning the championship, we wanted the pole badly. So I'm very happy with the results. The team did a fantastic job. And since the car has been improved a lot, I was thinking that we could take the pole if I didn't make any mistakes."

GT300
Takeshi Tsuchiya remarked, "As we could set a fantastic lap time in the first session, we chose to work on setting up the car for tomorrow's race in the afternoon. It's great to be able to start from such a good position on the grid for such an important race."