2009 SUPER GT Round2

Weather:Fine | Course:Dry | Air Temp. 23°C | Track Temp. 38°C

No.1 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R The starting driver for the winning No. 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430 was Richard Lyons. In the early stages of the race Lyons tried to overtake Satoshi Motoyama in the pole-starting No. 1 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R, but Motoyama skillfully keep him at bay. This push quickened the tire wear on the No.38 machine and by lap 15 it began to slow down. The gap that Lyons had narrowed at one point to 0.5 seconds eventually widened to more than eight seconds and the No. 36 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 driven by Andre Lotterer running in 3rd position was closing in on Lyons' tail.
At the end of lap 27, Lyons brought car No. 38 in for its routine pit stop. That involved a tire change, refueling and changing drivers to Yuji Tachikawa, but the pit stop took longer than it should have and in the process No. 38 fell behind the No. 12 IMPUL CALSONIC GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda > Sebastien Philippe) and the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX (Yuji Ide > Shinya Hosokawa). Then, as Tachikawa left the pit lane, he was also passed by car No. 36 (Jyuichi Wakisaka), which had finished its pit stop on the previous lap.

No.36 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430
It only took Tachikawa (No. 38) until lap 30 to catch No. 100 (Hosokawa) and pass it on the 130R curve. And, although it took some time, he also passed No. 12 (Philippe) just before the spoon curve of lap 43 and began to give chase to Wakisaka in car No. 36.
Meanwhile, Benoit Treluyer in car No. 1 was running alone in the lead, but with seven or eight laps remaining in the race his pace dropped sharply. Apparently it was tire trouble and it caused him to be passed by No. 36 (Wakisaka) at the spoon on lap 46. Then, on the 130R curve, Tachikawa in No. 38 had a bump-up with Treluyer in car No. 1 that sent one wheel off onto the dirt but didn't stop him from pulling up even and eventually past No. 1 on the chicane.
This put the SC430 ace drivers Wakisaka (No. 36) and Tachikawa (No. 38) in a one-on-one dual for the lead, and with four laps remaining in the race Tachikawa (No. 38) pulled up alongside Wakisaka (No. 36) on the Casio Triangle and managed to take the lead after a very close side-by-side pass.

No.12 IMPUL CALSONIC GT-R Just after that, on the same Casio Triangle, there was a collision between the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX (Shinya Hosokawa) battling for 5th position and the No. 3 HASEMI TOMICA EBBRO GT-R (Hironobu Yasuda). The No. 8 ARTA NSX (Takuya Izawa) running just behind them got caught up in this crash. This multiple-car accident brought out the safety car and the race ended with the field still running in file behind the safety car.
For the winner Yuji Tachikawa, this was his 11th career win in SUPER GT/JGTC competition and it moved him out of his tie with Satoshi Motoyama for most wins and made him the sole record holder. This win also broke the streak of five consecutive wins for the GT-R that had continued since round six of last season.

With the No. 36 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 (Jyuichi Wakisaka/Andre Lotterer) taking 2nd place, it was a 1-2 finish for the SC430 camp. Finishing in 3rd place was the No. 12 IMPUL CALSONIC GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda/Sebastien Philippe).
Although the No. 1 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R took the checkered in 4th place, a 27-sec. time penalty for the collision while being passed by No. 38 (Tachikawa) moved its official finish back to 11th place.
The highest finisher among the NSX teams was the No. 18 ROCKSTAR DOME NSX (Ryo Michigami/Takashi Kogure) in 5th.

Starting from the GT300 class pole position, the No. 33 HANKOOK PORSCHE ran alone in the lead from early in the race. The starting driver, Masami Kageyama, needed only 10 laps to build up a lead of more than five seconds. After that Kageyama continued to use the Porsche's speed advantage on the straights to widen the gap over the field, and after lap 20 he had given the team a considerable margin of safety.
No. 33 made its routine pit stop somewhat early, at the end of lap 23. And even though the pit work took a fairly long 35 seconds, their lead margin was large enough that the second driver, Mitsuhiro Kinoshita, was able to return to the track still effectively in the lead.

No.7 M7 MUTIARA MOTORSAMEMIYASGC 7
In the latter stages of the race, the multiple-car crash in the GT500 class and other mishaps caused no real change in the order of the lead cars in the GT300 class race all the way to the checkered. This gave the well-earned victory to the No. 33 HANKOOK PORSCHE (Mitsuhiro Kinoshita/Masami Kageyama).
This was the first SUPER GT victory for the HANKOOK PORSCHE team, and also the first SUPER GT victory for a machine on Hankook tires. For Kinoshita, it was his first GT win since the opening round of the 2005 series at Okayama and his third overall. For Kageyama, this was his 10th GT win, including seven in the GT500 class and three in the GT300 class.

No.46 S Road MOLA Z
Finishing 2nd in the GT300 race was the No. 7 M7 MUTIARA MOTORS AMEMIYA SGC 7 (Nobuteru Taniguchi/Ryo Orime). Starting from third position on the class grid, Taniguchi had trouble matching the pace of the No. 81 DAISHIN ADVAN Ferrari (Tomonobu Fujii) with its speed advantage on the straights. In a bold attempt to close the gap, the team opted to run the whole race on the same set of tires and thus shorten their pit stop time. In contrast, No. 81 required more than a minute for its pit stop and, by the time the second driver, Takayuki Aoki, returned to the race, they had lost several places in the field. Meanwhile, the second driver in No. 7, Orime, was able to minimize the loss of pace due to tire wear and maintain a firm hold on 2nd place all the way to the checkered. This gave No. 7 its second consecutive podium finish, following a 3rd in the opening round.

The third spot on the podium went to the No. 46 S Road MOLA Z (Kazuki Hoshino > Masataka Yanagida). Having started from 5th position on the class grid, the team managed its first podium finish of the season, aided in part by the fact that the faster qualifying No. 2 Privée Apple Shiden (Hiroki Yoshimoto > Hiroki Katoh) had been forced to start from the pit.