On March 1st, the second day of the season's first official SUPER GT test took place at Suzuka Circuit in Mie. SUPER GT teams continued to put mileage on their cars as they did on the first day of the test, giving every effort to collect as many data as possible to get ready for the season opener.


Session 3

Weather: Fine | Course: Dry/Wet | Air Temp: 7°C | Track Temp: 9-13°C

The first run was scheduled to begin from 9:00AM. Rain scattered on Suzuka from early morning. Although the rain had stopped just before the session started, the track remained wet for a while forcing teams to start with wet tires. They calmly and steadily accumulated laps on their cars. They seemed to concentrate on testing wet tires and capturing data under such condition; even the top GT500 teams only lapped at 2 min 04 marks. Actually, many teams stayed out from running in the given condition including No. 1 ARTA NSX who crashed and damaged the car the day before.

As cars continued to make runs in the session, the record line started to dry up. When the teams began to change their tires to dry tires, there was only less than 5 minutes remaining in the session. No.38 ZENT CERUMO SC430 (Yuji Tachikawa) got on the 1 min 54 sec mark first but it was quickly overtopped by No.12 CALSONIC IMPUL GTR (Tsugio Matsuda). On the last lap before the checker, No.100 RAYBRIG NSX (Shinya Hosokawa) gave 1 min 53 sec 865 and that remained on the top of the timing monitor until the checkered flag, becoming the fastest time of the session. No.1 car stayed in the pit even after the track dried up and made no runs in the session.


No.36 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430

In the GT300 class, No.77 CUSCO DUNLOP SUBARU IMPREZA was the fastest car on the track in the wet. It utilized its featured all weather AWD (four-wheel drive) and momentarily placed itself in the top 10 of the overall including the GT500 class. As the session ending with the track surface drying up, No.81 Fairlady Z (Takayuki Aoki) marked 2 min 06 sec 809 to jump on the top of GT300 followed by No.7 ORC AMEMIYA SGC-7 (Hiroyuki Iiri) at second with 2 min 08 sec 904.



No.87 LAMBORGHINI MURCIELAGO
Session 4

Weather: Fine | Course: Dry | Air Temp: 9°C | Track Temp: 13°C

The second run of the day started at 13:47. Dark clouds drifted away from time to time but blue sky extended most of the part above and the track remained dried giving a decent condition for the cars to test.

An exercise simulating a red flag situation was conducted during the session. Safety car (SC) came in to the track after a few minutes into the session as scheduled. Cars followed the safety car to come to a halt at the main straight, gathered in groups accordingly to respective class, and restarted behind the safety car.

With the remaining time shortening after15:30, teams gradually began to run fast laps simulating the qualifier. The best time of the previous day was on 1 min 53 sec mark, but for this session, No.17 REAL NSX (Toshihiro Kaneishi) set a time at 1 min 52 sec 812, first up to break the 1 min 53 sec mark. Soon after, No.12 CALSONIC IMPUL GTR (Tsugio Matsuda) timed at 1 min 52 sec 720, exceeding pass NSX. The fastest of the day before, No.23 XANAVI NISMO GT-R (Benoit Treluyer), challenged the time set by No.12 but fell short with 1 min 52 sec 805. Checkered flag came out just after when No.36 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 (Andre Lotterer) marked the 4th fastest time at 1 min 52 sec 981. After all, the fastest time of the 2-day test went to No.12 Tsugio Matsuda's 1 min 52 sec 720. No.23 Benoit Treluyer followed at the second fastest, concluding the new GT-R's 1st and 2nd place at the test. The fastest among NSX's was No.17 REAL NSX, and No.36 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 lead the SC430 camp. No.1 ARTA NSX had stopped during the SC run but later recovered to continue the run. Their trouble seemed to be no major one in spite of going off the track few times and the time being in the bottom section of the timing sheet.


No.17 REAL NSX

Similarity was seen in GT300 with teams clocking faster time in the latter part of the session. At the end of the day, the fastest time of the session went to No.87 MURCIE RG-1 (Koji Yamanishi) at 2 min 05 sec 441. It also became to be the overall fastest of the 2-day test. There were four other cars that marked 2 minutes 05 marks, namely No.46 MOLA Z, No.7 ORC AMEMIYA SGC-7, and No.81 Fairlady Z. GT300 is also depicting an intense competition as in the GT500 class.
No.43 ARTA Garaiya, who gave a minor damaged to the rear end of the car when the car went out of the track at 130R in the first session, and No.77 CUSCO DUNLOP SUBARU IMPREZA, with a gearbox problem, did not run in this session.


No.46 MOLA Z

No.7 ORC AMEMIYA SGC-7