2009 Round3>Qualifying

2009 SUPER GT Round3

Qualifying

2009-05-04

Two consecutive pole positions for MOTUL AUTECH GT-R!
ARTA Garaiya runs strong to GT300 class pole position

On May 3rd the official qualifying was held for the FUJI GT 400km RACE, Round 3 of the 2009 AUTOBACS SUPER GT. In it, Satoshi Motoyama won the GT500 class Pole Position driving the No. 1 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R. The GT300 class pole was won by Shinichi Takagi in the ARTA Garaiya.

Teams prepare for the race and qualifying in the practice session

In Sunday morning's official practice session the No. 6 ENEOS SC430 driven by Daisuke Ito recorded the fastest lap time. Soon after the session started, Ito ran a time of 1 min. 35.601 sec. The second fastest time was run by the No. 36 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 (Andre Lotterer) with a 1 min. 35.639 sec. lap midway into the session. These were the only two machines to break the 1 min. 36 sec. barrier. The third fastest time was the 1 min. 36.011 sec. lap recorded by the No. 1 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Satoshi Motoyama). Due to the fact that an accumulation of Driving Moral Hazard Points prevented teammate Benoit Treluyer from running in this session, Motoyama drove the team's time-attack laps. The fourth fastest time and the best among the NSX teams was run by Ralph Firman in the No. 8 ARTA NSX at 1 min. 36.169 sec. This time apparently demonstrated that any after-effects of the crash the team suffered bin the latter stages of the previous race at Suzuka have been overcome. As for the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX, an accumulation of Driving Moral Hazard Points by Shinya Hosokawa relegated the driving responsibilities to Kosuke Matsuura.
In the GT300 class, the top time was the 1 min. 43.793 sec. lap recorded by the No. 81 DAISHIN ADVAN Ferrari driven by Takayuki Aoki. The team has clearly maintained the speed they showed in the qualifying sessions of the previous round at Suzuka. The second-fastest time in this session was recorded by the No. 43 ARTA Garaiya driven by Shinichi Takagi. This team had run last year's race with only one pit stop, but this year's Supplementary Regulation requires the teams to make two pit stops. Much interest is focused this time on how this and the other teams that ran on a single pit stop strategy last year will fare in this year's race.

No.43 ARTA Garaiya

DAISHIN ADVAN Ferrari 2nd in class again

In the Super Lap, Satoshi Motoyama in the No. 1 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R ran a nearly perfect lap to claim the lead by 0.072 sec. with a lap time of 1 min. 34.622 sec. This gave him and the MOTUL AUTECH their second consecutive pole position after round 2.
The second fastest in the Super Lap was the No. 36 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 (Andre Lotterer). Although Lotterer ran the final sector of the course faster than Motoyama in car No. 1, his overall lap time fell just short.
Qualifying 3rd was the 3 No. 8 ARTA NSX (Ralph Firman). After qualifying only 6th in the morning session, Firman came back to raise his standing by three places in the Super Lap and lead the NSX teams. The morning's third fastest qualifier, the No. 3 HASEMI TOMICA EBBRO GT-R (Ronnie Quintarelli), overran the Coca Cola corner during its Super Lap attack and went off the track. The resulting time loss dropped No. 3 back to 7th position. The morning's 8th fastest qualifier, No. 24 HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R (Joao Paulo Lima de Oliveira), also suffered a big time loss by spinning out in the same Coca Cola corner. Meanwhile, driver Akihiro Tsuzuki of the No. 21 ASTON MARTIN AKASAKA DBR9 team failed to get a qualifying time in the first qualifying session and whether of not the team will be able to compete in the race on Monday will be decided by the steward of the meeting based on the results of the morning practice session on race day (Monday).
In the GT300 class, Shinichi Takagi in the No. 43 ARTA Garaiya ran times considerably faster than the rival teams in both the morning qualifying session and the Super Lap. In the Super Lap, Takagi became the first in class to break the 1 min. 43 sec. barrier with a time of 1 min. 42.936 sec. that placed him 0.299 sec. ahead of the next fastest car. That second-fastest qualifier was the No. 81 DAISHIN ADVAN Ferrari (Takayuki Aoki). This gave the DAISHIN ADVAN Ferrari its second consecutive 2nd-place qualifying position in two rounds. Taking advantage of the Ferrari's speed on the straights, Aoki ran the first sector of the course approximately 0.3 sec. faster than car No. 43 but was slower over the second and third sectors. Third in the Super Lap came the No. 19 Weds Sport IS350 (Manabu Orido), which made the top-three order the same as the morning session. Coming 4th in the Super Lap was the No. 11 JIMGAINER ADVAN F430 (Tetsuya Tanaka), jumping up from 6th position in the morning session. The No. 26 UP START TAISAN PORCHE (Haruki Kurosawa), which was expected to use its speed on the straights to qualify among the leaders like No. 81, failed to qualify for the Super Lap when its front right-side wheel came off in the morning qualifying.

Benoit Treluyer / Satoshi Motoyama , Morio Nitta / Shinichi Takagi

GT500 Class | Pole Position

No. 1 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R

Satoshi Motoyama: I thought things would probably go well like they did at Suzuka (Rd. 2) but the track surface was slippery, which made the choice of tires difficult. When I saw the first machine to run in the Super Lap take a spin, I decided to be careful about warming up the tires for my run. Fuji Speedway is not one of the tracks that the GT-R performs well at, and I have always considered it not one of the better courses for myself personally. Because of that, I was feeling uncertain before I started my runs. I'd like to feel happy about this pole position, but considering what happened in the last race (losing several places due to trouble after leading for most of the race), I'll wait until tomorrow's race is over before celebrating.
Benoit Treluyer: Motoyama san did a great job for us today. Thanks to him, I had an easy day today (laughs). At the last round I couldn't do much driving in the qualifying because of the penalty, only enough to check out the set-up. My job now is to do my best in tomorrow's race.

GT300 Class | Pole Position

No. 43 ARTA Garaiya

Shinichi Takagi: Nitta san chose the tires for us in the morning practice session, and the soft tires he chose felt good. Normally, our car doesn't do well on sector three in the second half of the Fuji course, but it performed very well there this time. I felt that the Michelin soft tires fit the conditions very well during the qualifying. I think we can win tomorrow's race even with the two pit stops.
Morio Nitta: Today the settings were very good just as they came from the garage and I'm grateful to the team for that. Last year we ran this race with a single pit stop strategy, but this year the rules demand that we make two pit stops, but we can consider this a new challenge.

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