Qualifying Session 1

The first qualifying session was held at 11:00 in the morning (local time) for 60 minutes. The first 20 minutes were for GT300 class and the next 20 minutes for the GT500 class, with the last 20 minutes for both classes to run together. The weather was uncertain, cloudy skies and occasional light rain. This led the teams to get out on the track as early as possible to make their timed laps, but in the end the track remained dry throughout the session. The temperature at the start of the session was 26 degrees C. and the track temperature 28 C. At the end of the session the temperatures had risen to 27 and 29 respectively.

In the GT300 class, No.7 AMEMIYA ASPARADRINK RX7 showed that it had a liking for the Sepang course. Coming out on the track a little later than the others, Tetsuya Yamano ran his first timed lap at 2'09.674 to take the lead. This was followed by a 2'09.965 lap for 2nd place by No.2 I.M JIHAN Apple Shiden (Hiroki Kato) , which had the fastest time on Friday. After this, No.110 TOTALBENEFIT GREENTEC BOXTER (Ichijo Suga) and No.19 WedsSport Celica (Shigekazu Wakisaka) ran times just over 2 min.10 sec. Meanwhile, No.27 direxiv ADVAN 320R, No.96 EBBRO BTEC MAZIORA 350R were unable to better the times they had run earlier an improve their positions. With three minutes left in the GT300 classes 20 -minute session, No.55 DHG ADVAN FORD GT (Hidetoshi Mitsusada) ran a 2'10.369 lap to jump up to 6th position from a poor early showing. This gave the team its first Super Lap qualifying time ever. Having been unable to get a good time early on, No.101 TEAM RUN'A apr MR-S kept running timed laps but only managed to finish in 13th position, thus failing to qualify for the Super Lap. None of the teams were able to improve on their times in the mixed session after the GT500 class' session, so the machines qualifying for the Super Lap were No.7 RX7, followed by No.2, No.110, No.19, No.96, No.55, No.27, No.13 ENDLESS ADVAN CCI Z, No.14 HANKOOK ENDLESS PORSCHE and No.11 JIM CENTER FERRARI DUNLOP.

The GT500 class team, also worried about a weather change, got out on the track early in their 20-minute exclusive session, The first team to dip under 2 minutes was No.8 ARTA NSX (Ralph Firman) with a 1'59.024 lap, which put them about one second ahead of the competition at that point. Following with times under 2 min. 1 sec. were No.18 TAKATA DOME NSX and No.100 RAYBRIG NSX. This put the three NSX machines at the top of the time board for a while. Then No.3 YellowHat YMS TOMICA Z (Joao Paulo Lima De Oliveira) ran a 1'59.942 lap to move into 2nd position. A few minutes later, No.12 CALSONIC IMPUL Z (Benoit Treluyer) ran a 1'59.700 time to move into 2nd and start a rush of times under 2 min. by the other teams as well. But, it was No.8 Firman who raised the bar even higher with a 1'58.642 lap that left the competition far behind.
Just after that, No.12 Treluyer also dipped under 1'59 but not far enough to catch No.8, leaving them in 2nd position. Then No.22 MOTUL AUTECH Z (Krumm) also broke the 1'59 barrier. With five minutes left in the GT500 classes session, No.1 ZENT CERUMO SC (Yuji Tachikawa) ran a 1'59.554 lap that moved them into 4th position. At this point the efforts by the teams around the Super Lap cut-off position of 10th place heated up, and it was No.24 WOODONE ADVAN KONDO Z (Erik Comas) that finally got the 10th spot. After that, No.6 Mobile 1 SC (Tatsuya Kataoka) also made a run for 10th but came up short. The result was that No.8 ARTA NSX led the pack, followed by No.12, No.22, No.1, No.36 OPEN INTERFACE TOM'S SC430, No.18, No.3, No.23 XANAVI NISMO Z, No.100, and No.24 as Super Lap qualifiers. For machine No.24 it was the first Super Lap qualification of the season

In the mixed session after the GT500 class' session there was a collision between No.110 and No.2 that resulted in a cancellation of the best time of No.110, but their second-best time was still enough to put them in 9th position and qualify for the Super Lap. Thus there was no change in the top ten.

Qualifying Session 2

The second qualifying session started exactly at 16:00. Fifteen-minute runs were held for the GT300 and GT500 classes in that order and after a 5-minute interval the Super Laps started, with the GT300 class running first. At the start of the session, the temperature was 27 C. and the track temperature 28 C. This was cool for Malaysia. The sky remained cloudy but the rain everyone was worried about never fell and the track remained dry for the session.

The first GT300 machine to take to the course for the Super Lap was No.11 JIM CENTER FERRARI DUNLOP (Tetsuya Tanaka) . The time of 2'10.810 run by the second machine out on the track, No.110 BOXSTER (Suga) , became the time to beat. The first to beat it was No.13 ENDLESS ADVAN CCI Z (Masami Kageyama) with a 2'10.090 lap. Next, No.27 direxiv ADVAN 320R (Nobuteru Taniguchi) ran off the track, perhaps because of running too hard on used tires after having used two sets in the morning session. Taniguchi managed to recover beautifully after a 180 spin, but the time loss was of course significant. The sixth machine to make its run, No.55 DHG ADVAN FORD GT (Hidetoshi Mitsusada) tuned in a 2'10.694 lap. That wasn't enough to catch No.13 it did move ahead of No.110 to put them in 2nd position at that point. Then the eighth machine to run, No.19 Celica (Wakisaka) , scored a 2'10.398 lap to move into 2nd position.
That left the two fastest machines from the morning session to run. Driving first was Hiroki Kato in the No.2 I.M. JIHAN CO.LTD APPLE Shiden. Racing through the first check point already 0.5 sec. ahead of the best time, he went on to score an awesome 2'08.692 lap that put him more than a second ahead of the competition. The top qualifier from the morning session, Tetsuya Yamano in the No.7 AMEMIYA ASPARADRINK RX7 also gave it his best shot but failed to reach No.2, finishing in 3rd with a 2'10.222 time. As a result, the No.2 I.M JIHAN CO.LTD APPLE Shiden won the class pole position.

After an interval for cleaning the track, the GT500 class Super Lap got underway. Erik Comas was the first to run in the No.24 WOODONE ADVAN KONDO Z machine. Next, Sebastien Philippe ran under 2 min. 1 sec. in the No.100 RAYBRIG NSX to set the first target time. No.23 XANAVI NISMO Z (Satoshi Motoyama) and No.3 YellowHat YMS TOMICA Z (Joao Paulo Lima De Oliveira) also broke the 2 min. 1 sec. barrier but were unable to better Philippe's time. The first to break 2 minutes was the sixth machine to run, No.36 OPEN INTERFACE TOM'S SC430 (Andre Lotterer) , with a 1'59.693. The seventh machine out, No.1 ZENT CERUMO SC (Yuji Tachikawa) ran an even faster 1'59.228.
The next runner, No.22 MOTUL AUTECH Z (Krumm) finally broke the 1'59 barrier with a 1'58.794 lap. Then, after running within a 1000th of a second of No.22's time at the mid-way point, No.12 CALSONIC IMPUL Z (Treluyer) lost speed over the second half of the course and failed to break 1'59.
But the last runner, Ralph Firman in the No.8 ARTA NSX, simply blew the competition away. In the first sector he had already opened a 0.6-second lead over the competition and he went on to run a 1'57.866. lap, almost a full second ahead of the 2nd place machine. This gave the No.8 machine its second pole position I two years at Sepang. The 2nd place qualifier was No.22 and 3rd place went to No.1, making the NSX, Fairlady Z and the SC430 the top three qualifiers.

D.Ito, R.Firman, H.Kato, K.Takahashi

GT500 Class Pole Position

No.8 ARTA NSX

Ralph Firman

Yeah,very pleased qualifying pole obviously. It's nice to start from there. We had a really good car for whole weekend today I felt really confident right from the start and with no rain we had a very good chance to guarantee pole. So I am very pleased trying to get temperature on the tires. It's first time we experienced low temperature here in Malaysia so, get in front tires warmed up with a very hard compound and it's difficult in a Honda. But Onishi, my engineer told me that there were people who struggling before the qualifying and I push very very hard on the out lap which help a lot and get a good lap in qualifying.

Daisuke Ito

We came to this circuit knowing that we have a chance to win. The car has been running very well since Friday and we are happy that Ralph did a good job out there today to win us the pole position. Last year we were equally strong in the qualifying but failed to win in the race. But this year the weather is cool and it looks like we won't have people melting in the heat (laughs). If this weather continues, I think I can give it 100% tomorrow. We have the machine set up well for the race, so I am going to do my best to make sure we don't end up like we did last year.

GT300 Class Pole Position

No.2 I.M JIHAN CO.LTD APPLE Shiden

Hiroki Katoh

I have run a 12-hour ace here on the course and won about three races in all. Having run that much here, I feel prepare for the race. But, every year the track temperature is different. And today it was especially low, in the 20s. That's why I talked with the engineers this morning and decided to change suddenly to a softer tire. Of it rains, the race is going to be a mudslinger, so you want to be as far forward as possible. Since it had rained a bit before the Super Lap, there was probably some advantage for the machines that ran later. So, things went well in that respect, too. I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow and we can race in cloudy conditions like today.

Kazuho Takahashi

It is going to be tough if it rains for the final tomorrow. We started from the pole position in the last round at Fuji Speedway, too, but we were unable to win the race because of the penalty and such. Tomorrow we are going to try to get a pole-to-finish win.