2009 Round4>Qualifying

2009 SUPER GT Round4

Qualifying

2009-06-21

MOTUL AUTECH GT-R wins third straight Pole Position
S Road MOLA Z takes GT300 class pole

The official qualifying for Round 4 of the 2009 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, the SUPER GT INTERNATIONAL SERIES MALAYSIA, was held on the afternoon of June 20. The winner of the pole position in the Super Lap format qualifying was the No.1 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R driven by Satoshi Motoyama. The GT300 class pole winner was the No. 46 S Road MOLA Z (Masataka Yanagida).

RABRYG NSX fastest in first qualifying session

The first qualifying session started at 14:15 and the top eight teams qualified for the Super Lap. In the GT500 class, the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX (Yuji Ide) recorded the fastest lap of the session, followed by the No. 6 ENEOS SC430, the No. 3 HASEMI TOMICA EBBRO GT-R, the No. 18 ROCKSTAR DOME NSX, the No. 1 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R, the No. 24 HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R, the No. 35 KRAFT SC430 and the No. 8 ARTA NSX to fill out the top eight qualifiers moving on to the Super Lap.
The GT500 class Super Lap began at 16:50. Here, the pole position was won by the No. 1 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R, with Satoshi Motoyama driving the team's time attacks, as in the last two Rounds. In the first qualifying session, Motoyama had run the 5th fastest time with a 1 min. 59.976 sec. lap, but in the Super Lap he improved that dramatically to 1 min. 58.124 sec. He was especially fast over the first and second sectors of the course, running them 0.2 sec. faster than the 2nd place car and going on to run the latter half of the course with no trouble. This gave Motoyama his third pole position of the season and three straight in the last three rounds.
Qualifying 2nd fastest was the No. 3 HASEMI TOMICA EBBRO GT-R (Ronnie Quintarelli) with a time of 1 min. 58.195 sec. that fell just 0.071 sec. short of Motoyama's time in car No. 1. Over the fourth sector of the course, Quintarelli had actually run faster than Motoyama. With the change to Michelin tires this season, the No. 3 team had been suffering from a lack of data, but in this 4th round it appears to have rapidly closed the gap on its rivals. Perhaps the Michelin tires are better suited to the high track temperatures here at Sepang.
Following the two GT-Rs, the No. 18 ROCKSTAR DOME NSX (Takashi Kogure) qualified 3rd. Its time of 1 min. 58.291 sec. fell close to 0.1 sec. behind Quintarelli's time in car No. 3, but put it more than 0.4 sec. ahead of the 4th-place qualifier.
In 4th place came the No. 6 ENEOS SC430 (Daisuke Ito) as the fastest qualifier among the SC430 teams. In fact, only two of the SC430 teams qualified for the Super Lap this time, No. 6 and the No. 35 KRAFT SC430 (Hiroaki Ishiura). The No. 36 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 and the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430, which presently stand 2nd and 3rd respectively in the season ranking, were unable to qualify for the Super Lap.

No.46 S Road MOLA Z

Leaders fail to hold positions in GT300 Super Lap

In the GT300 class, the No. 87 giraffa GALLARDO RG-3 (Hiroyuki Iiri) was the fastest qualifier in the first session. The remaining Super Lap qualifiers in order were the No. 81 DAISHIN ADVAN Ferrari, the No. 2 I.M JIHAN Co. LTD･APPLE･Shiden, the No. 52 KUMHO TIRE SHIFT IS350, the No. 46 S Road MOLA Z, the No. 66 triple a MURCIE RG-1, the No. 11 JIM GAINER ADVAN F430 and the No. 19 WedsSport IS350. Among these, however, No. 81 developed engine trouble in the latter part of the first session. With the possibility of the damage becoming more serious if they continued to run, team No. 81 withdrew from the Super Lap. At present the team is working hard to solve the problem so it can compete in Sunday's race.
The eventual winner of the GT300 class pole was the No. 2 I.M JIHAN CO.LTD･APPLE･Shiden (Hiroki Katoh), which had qualified 3rd in the first session with a time of 2 min. 10.570 sec. In the Super Lap, however, Katoh was able to break the 2 min. 10 sec. barrier with a time of 2 m in. 09.983sec. This turned out to be 0.373 sec. faster than the 2nd-place qualifier.
In 2nd place came the No. 46 S Road MOLA Z (Masataka Yanagida), running more than 0.9 sec. faster than in the first session to record a time of 2 min. 10.356 sec. Despite the improvement, however, it still fell short of Katoh's time in machine No. 2.
Qualifying 3rd was the No. 11 JIMGAINER ADVAN F430 (Tetsuya Tanaka). Here again, Tanaka improved on his first session time by more than 1 sec. and move from 7th up to 3rd position.
In contrast, the first session's fastest qualifying machine, the No. 87 giraffa GALLARDO RG-3 (Hiroyuki Iiri), spun out during its Super Lap run and took a big time loss that dropped it to 7th position.
As a new team debuting in the SUPER GT here at Sepang, the No. 69 Thunder Asia MT900R (Martin Short) qualified 9th in the first session. Although it fell 0.2 sec. short of qualifying for the Super Lap, its performance can certainly be considered successful for a first GT appearance.
In the post-qualifying machine inspections, infractions were found in five of the 50 regulation items on the No. 2 I.M JIHAN CO. LTD･APPLE･Shiden, causing it to be disqualified for infringement of SUPER GT Sporting Regulation. This disqualification gave the pole position to the No. 46 S Road MOLA Z.

GT500 Class | Pole Position

No. 1 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R

Satoshi Motoyama: I was really surprised to get this [pole position] result. I think we benefitted from the change in the track conditions [compared to the first session] at the time of the Super Lap. I am grateful to the team for setting up a great car. After my Super Lap run, I was honestly expecting to do no better than 3rd position or so. On my way back to the pit I watched the monitor to see if any of the remaining cars were beating my time. I was back in the pit watching with Benoit and the team as the last two machines ran their time attacks and hoping we'd get the pole position.
For this round our car has been fitted with an air-conditioning system. Mounting a system like this is a first for a racing car. It makes it cooler for the driver than a cooled suit and in terms of the driving environment it is a big improvement. If we use it in the race it will surely help the drivers' concentration, and that can be a big advantage. Although we are carrying a weight handicap, among the SUPER GT courses, Sepang is one where weight doesn't have too much of an effect. So, I think we have a chance to win tomorrow.

GT300 Class | Pole Position

No. 46 S Road MOLA Z

Masataka Yanagida: We made a number of setting changes from the time of the morning rain, but the track wasn't in race condition yet when we started on dry track in the first session, so we had to prepare the machine a little at a time. During that process the track got in shape quickly and we were finally able to make our time attack with a new set of tires. There was a strong under-steering tendency at first and we adjusted that in preparation for the Super Lap. As the track temperature rose the times got better and better. And I feel that we adapted the settings to the changes well. I have been working with Kazuki [Hoshino] to search for the right directions for the settings and that process went well. My time attack also went well, so I'm very happy. This time I will really be going for the win.

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