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2001-04-15 |
Race Review
- 1,2,3 Finish in Eventful Opening Race -
GT500 Crass
TI Circuit AIDA was the site of the opening race of the JGTC season, welcoming a huge crowd of 50,500 spectators. To the disappointment of driver pair Marco Apicella and Naohiro Furuya, as well as many fans, the JLOC team had to pull the No.88 Lamborghini Diablo out of the race following the morning warm-up session due to lack of preparation.
The green light for the 82-lap race was given under fine blue skies, and a smooth start by pole sitter Mitsusada in the No.1 NSX kept him at the front of the pack. Kurosawa in the No.36 Supra and Ito in the No.100 bumped hard on the first lap, giving a sign of things to come throughout the day. (Both were able to return to the race.) After starting the No.23 Skyline GT-R from 4th on the grid, Comas made quick progress through the field and was sitting in second by the end of the first lap, followed Schwager in the 64 Honda and Krumm in the No.22 Skyline GT-R. The No.23 car ran successively quicker laps putting immense pressure on Mitsusada, and the Frenchman finally overtook him on lap 10 capitalizing on backmarker traffic.
" I couldn't do anything due to the backarker," said Mitsusada afterward. " Then all that I could do was wait for the same chance."
Comas worked hard to pull away from Mitsusada, but a problem with the grip of the left rear tire interfered and he began dropping position with each passing lap. Finally, the NISMO team called him into the pit to change tires.
Other accidents during the day included a spin by Wakisaka in the No.6 Supra on lap 6, contact between Wakisaka and the No.18 Honda NSX driven by Kato on lap 33 (both cars rejoined the race further back in position), and with the top runners on lap 38, Takeuchi flipped the No.38 Supra onto its top requiring the Safety Car to be introduced. Takeuchi managed to escape from the car on his own.
In the second half of the race, Michigami kept the No.1 Honda in the lead. In the pack behind him were Tsuchiya in the No.8 NSX, Tanaka in the No.22 Skyline and Matsuda in the No.64 NSX. The highlight of the latter stages was a severe battle between Tanaka and Matsuda. Tanaka tried everything to hold him off for many laps, but his tires began to lose grip and he could no longer hold off charge of the persistent young driver and had to settle for a fourth place finish in the end.
Newcomer Dufour experienced a communications problem with the team and ended up passing through the pit during the race when a stop wasn't required. Even so, he finished a promising seventh, with another newcomer, Andre Couto in the No.30 McLaren F1 GTR, immediately behind in eighth.
" The timing of our routine stop was excellent, with the Safety Car being introduced into the track," commented Michigami after the race. " I warmed the tires with the Safety Car out, and then pushed hard after the restart of the race." 
GT300 Crass
From the green light, GT300 pole sitter Nitta never lost a beat and kept the No.31 Toyota MR-S at the front of the pack from the onset. Initially challenging from behind were Fukuyama in the No.26 Porsche 996GT3R, Tanigawa in the No.77 Subaru Impreza and Yamano in the No.7 Mazda RX7. But the No.31 car was consistently quicker throughout the entire race, giving Nitta and Takagi an easy win for the first race of the season.
" We had absolutely no problems with the car," said Nitta after the race. " I pushed hard at the beginning so that we could run easily later on."
Takagi explained, " I suffered heavy oversteer. So I restrained myself as much as possible, and I felt a lot of pressure."
In the final laps of the race, Kobayashi did his best to reduce the gap between his No.77 Impreza and the leader, but it was impossible to catch the No.31 car. The Mosler 900R entered by Team SRILANKA, a real attention getter at the circuit over the weekend, finished the race in 13th place.
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