2006 AUTOBACS SUPER GT Round2
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| Round2 | Practice Qualifying Race |
2006-04-07 fri 2006-04-08 sat 2006-04-09 sun |
Test : 2006-04-06 |
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Okayama International Circuit 3.703km |
Preview
Who will be victorious at Round 2 in Okayama,
the most technical track of the first half of the season?
In the opening round of the 2006 SUPER GT campaign, weather conditions changed dramatically from Qualifying to Race day, and it was the No.36 OPEN INTERFACE TOM'S SC430 of Juichi Wakisaka and Andre Lotterer that took the laurels in a major debut victory. While it is still too early to tell which is the strongest, the comparative closeness of the domestic production GT cars is already clear.
No.36 OPEN INTERFACE TOM'S SC430
And so to Round 2, the OKAYAMA GT 300km RACE, to be held over two days, April 8-9, at Okayama International Circuit in Okayama prefecture, south western Japan. Okayama International Circuit is known for being a tricky, technical course, and one that is sure to favor the Z and NSX entries with their superior cornering capabilities. It is a race they will be pushing hard to win.
No.23 XANAVI NISMO Z
Among the strongest contenders for glory in the second round of 2006 include the No. 23 Xanavi NISMO Z of Satoshi Motoyama and Tsugio Matsuda, the No. 8 ARTA NSX (Daisuke Ito/Ralph Firman), and the car that qualified second in the season opener, the Ryo Michigami/Takashi Kogure-piloted No. 18 TAKATA DOME NSX. Also tipped to top the results tables are last year's top qualifiers in Okayama, the No. 22 MOTUL AUTECH Z (Michael Krumm/Sakon Yamamoto) and last year's champions, Yuji Tachikawa and Toranosuke Takagi, now in the No. 1 ZENT CERUMO SC. Finally, last year's winners of this event, the No. 25 ECLIPSE ADVAN SUPRA of Manabu Orido and Takeshi Tsuchiya, could well pull off a strong result if the conditions are right.
No.18 TAKATA DOME NSX
No.88 AKTIO Murcie RG-1
Compared to its bigger sibling, the GT300 class is far more difficult to predict. Winners last time out, the No. 88 AKTIO Murcie RG-1 with Marco Apicella and Yasutaka Hinoi had hitherto never scored a victory. It is far too early to tell just who will be dominant on Sunday.
No.110 TOTALBENEFIT GREENTEC BOXSTER
However after Suzuka, the technically challenging Okayama International Circuit should produce good results for some of the mid-engined cars, including the 3rd-placed finisher at the season-opener, the No. 110 TOTALBENEFIT GREENTEC BOXSTER (Hideshi Matsuda/Ichijo Suga) and the No. 101 TOY STORY Racing MR-S of Morio Nitta and Shinichi Takagi. Also worth keeping an eye on are the No. 27 direxiv ADVAN 320R with Shogo Mitsuyama and Nobuteru Taniguchi, and the No.11 JIM CENTER FERARRI DUNLOP of Tetsuya Tanaka and Takayuki Aoki.
New to the class, the No. 2 Privee Zurich Apple Shiden (Kazuho Takahashi/Hiroki Katoh) has shown very promising early season strength. Also, in what is the car's competitive debut, what kind of performance will we see from the No. 55 DHG ADVAN FORD GT of Hidetoshi Mitsusada/Daisuke Ikeda? Okayama could provide some surprises this coming weekend.
