2003-10-26

2003 AUTOBACS JGTC Round7 JAPAN GT in KYUSHU 300km, 10.25,26 / AUTOPOLIS

Eventful Race Ends with
Victory for SARD Supra and Yokohama Tire
Ferrari Drops Out on Last Lap
Giving Way to Consecutive Win for Celica in GT300

No.39 DENSO SARD SUPRA GT

The Autopolis track reeked havoc on participants in Sunday's race, the course surface conditions wearing tires badly. Even so, victorious teams prevailed and for Round 7 in the GT500 class, it was a long-awaited opportunity for the No.39 Supra of TOYOTA TEAM SARD. The combination of veteran drivers, skillful team crew, car reliability and Yokohama tires leading to the win. "We set the car up so that tire wear would be minimal," said Takashi Ohashi, team manager.
In the GT300 class, it seemed as though the No. 11 Ferrari F360 would cross the finish line first for the win, but the car slowed and stopped at trackside on the final lap, having expelled it fuel supply. With this, the second running No.71 Toyota Celica of SIGMATIC Racing Team cruised to victory, marking consecutive wins for the team and drivers Tatsuya Kataoka and Keita Sawa.

Starting off the pole, Takeuchi kept the No.38 Supra in front and lead the field into the first corner. But a braking miss moments later gave opportunity for the No.64 NSX (Lotterer) and No.39 Supra (Orido) to slip by before the end of the first lap. These three cars dominated the early phase of the race, but the No.1 Supra was not far off the pace in spite of a heavy 90kg handicap weight, Iida driving aggressively to maintain his fourth place position.
Orido pushed all-out drove to close the gap on the No.64 NSX, and when the front-runners came up on the back markers around lap 10, he had whittled the difference down considerably. But Lotterer paced himself well, managing to keep the lead until he entered the pits for a routine stop on lap 25, at which time the top standings were No.39 Supra (Orido), No.1 Supra (Iida), No.100 NSX (Kato), No.23 Skyline GT-R (Motoyama), and No.38 Supra (Takeuchi). Orido pitted on lap 32 to pass the wheel of No.39 Toyota to Schwager, and Treluyer and the No.12 Skyline GT-R which had pitted earlier, took the lead and starting pulling away from the field. Treluyer's team opted for a two-stop strategy, so it was vital for him to build as much of a lead as possible for handing the wheel of the car back to Ide. Unfortunately, when the No.12 car went into the pits on lap 41 for the second stop, the No.39 Supra, now piloted by Schwager, retook the lead, followed by the No.64 NSX (Matsuda), No. 1 Supra (Wakisaka) and No.35 Supra (Hattori). Schwager was in good form, and began lapping consistently quicker to protect the lead.

Common to the JGTC, the second half of the race was filled with excitement as the cars jostled for position and the chance to overtake. One of the highlights was a tight, close-in battle for fifth place involving three Skyline GT-Rs (Lyons in the No.22 car, Krumm in the No.23 car and Ide in the No.12 car) and the No.35 Supra (Hattori). The four cars drove side-by-side, tail-to-front around the circuit. Ide making a dashing challenge in the end to get by all three other machines at once. The young Nissan driver then caught up with and passed the No.38 Supra (Tachikawa) to move into fourth, but his hard driving had taken a toll on the tires. He was forced to slow down in the final laps and finished sixth at the end of the day.
Wakisaka challenged his No.1 car with the No.64 NSX beginning around lap 50, getting into the slipstream of Matsuda's car and piling on the pressure. The Honda driver did his best to hold off the persistent defending champion, but the No.1 Supra slipped by on lap 54. But then just several hundred meters before the finish line, the No.1 car slowed and the No.64 NSX (Matsuda) and No.38 Supra (Takeuchi) shot by, giving the No.1 Supra a fourth place finish.
It appears that the team strategy was to gain points to increase the gap over second placed pair Motoyama and Krumm in the points standing, while avoiding the addition of more handicap weight. Indeed, with the results of the race, Wakisaka-Iida increased their lead for the Driver's Championship to sixth points (two point more than the previous round, and will be driving with the same handicap weight.
After the race, the No.12 car (Treluyer and Ida) was penalized one second for allegedly touching a car when passing it. The penalty dropped the car to 11th place in the official results.

Dominic Schwager: ""You should win when you have a car that is good enough to win. Today's race was the case. I received the wheel when we were running in first, and after that it, was depended on me for everything. The No.1 and No.64 cars passed us during the pit stop, so I had to work hard to overtook them again. You can lose two or three seconds very easily when you catch up with the GT300 cars. That's what makes it hard and so exciting until the end of the race."
Manabu Orido: ""This is fourth year for me to race in the GT500 class, and winning here was a big aim and important step for me, so I'm very happy. This is a great victory for Yokohama Tire, which has been putting a great deal of effort into developing the tires this year. When we tested a long run with the race configuration on Thursday and Friday, the tires only held for 20 laps. As a result, we changed the car set-up for the race so that we could keep the tires longer, and that went well."

No.71 SIGMA DUNLOP CELICA

Matsuda kept the No.11 Ferrari F360 in the lead from the start, his immediate pursuers being No.71 Celica (Sawa), No.19 Celica (Aoki) and No.77 Subaru Impreza (Kobayashi) in that order. The Ferrari was running well under the skillful hands of Matsuda and there seemed to be virtually no challenge building. Sawa did well in pacing the No.71 car, but Aoki pitted after only 7 laps. He returned to the track, but the team called the car back to the pit several times, causing the No.19 Celica to withdraw from battle in the top group.
Although the No.71 Celica took the lead when the Ferrari made its routine stop, Tanaka drove impressively (as he did at the end of Saturday qualifying) to close the gap on the Celica (now driven by Kataoka). Around lap 45, the veteran driver was on the tail of the Celica and piling on the pressure. The young Toyota hope tried everything to hold the Ferrari off, but Tanaka overtook on lap 54 and began increasing the gap lap by lap. It was an amazing performance by the Ferrari, and people in the circuit began talking of what an admirable first victory this would be for Ferrari. Only a few laps to go, the No.11 car seemed to be losing speed at some intervals, and on the final lap, the red Italian GT car lost power completely and rolled to a stop. The car out of fuel, Tanaka had to give up the race. The No.71 Celica crossed the finish line in first, giving the Toyota team and drivers Sawa and Kataoka their second consecutive victory. According to the JGTC Sporting regulations, Matsuda and Tanaka in the No.11 Ferrari classified in second place. Third place went to the No.26 Porsche driven by Yamaji and Nishizawa. The pair drove consistently from eighth on the grid and gradually improved their position throughout the race. With the results of this race, they have retaken the lead in the Driver's Championship points standing and TEAM ADVAN TAISAN won the 2003 Team Championship title for the GT300 class.

Keita Sawa: "Our plan was to overtake the No.11 Ferrari in the first laps relying on the excellent characteristics of the Dunlop tires. That was our strategy, but then again, I couldn't realize it. So I changed my mind and tried to follow the Ferrari as closely as possible, piling on the pressure whenever I could. Driving was hard after 30 laps due to tire wear. Since the Suzuka 1000km in August, we've had three straight victories. But my concern is to aim for four races consecutively by winning the last round at Suzuka."
Tatsuya Kataoka: " I couldn't recognize why the gap was closing between me and the Ferrari in the last laps, that is, if the Ferrari was slowing down. I was simply driving with all of my effort at that time. I could not have pushed any more. When I watched the Ferrari slowing down at the uphill, I relayed the message to my pit over the radio, and then made sure to drive carefully the remaining several hundred meters. I have had two chances in the JGTC this year and won two races. But today with a bit of luck we won, so I think we have some matters that we must still settle. In any case I'm very happy to win today. Unfortunately, as I'll be taking part in the Macao GP (F3), I will not be driving in the last round at Suzuka."

Round 8, the final round of the 2003 AUTOBACS JGTC season will be held at Suzuka Circuit on November 15-16.

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