2009 Round8>Qualifying

2009 SUPER GT Round8

Qualifying

2009-10-17

ZENT CERUMO SC430 wins its second Pole Position of the Season
 GT300 class pole goes to the ranking leader ARTA Garaiya

On Oct. 17, the qualifying for the SUPER GT in KYUSHU 300KM, Round 8 of the 2009 AUTOBACS SUPER GT, was held at the Autopolis (Oita Pref.) and the GT500 pole position was won by the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430 driven by Yuji Tachikawa, while the GT300 class pole went to the No. 43 ARTA Garaiya driven by Shinichi Takagi.

Qualifying #1 Weather:Cloudy | Course:Dry | Air Temp. 17°C | Track Temp. 19°C
SUPER LAP Weather:Cloudy | Course:Dry | Air Temp. 17°C | Track Temp. 19°C

Tachikawa wins Super Lap in good conditions

The first qualifying session began with dry track conditions at 12:40. During the ten minutes of the GT500 class-only session there was a fiercely competitive rush of attempts by the teams to score a fast lap time. As in the morning free practice session, it was Daisuke Ito in the No. 6 ENEOS SC430 who recorded the fastest time. Behind him, Yuji Tachikawa in the ZENT CERUMO SC430 ran the second fastest time, followed by the No. 12 IMPUL CALSONIC GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda), the No. 35 KRAFT SC430 (Kazuya Oshima), the No. 36 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 (Andre Lotterer), the No. 1 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R, (Benoit Treluyer), the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX (Yuji Ide) and the No. 8 ARTA NSX (Ralph Firman) as the eight qualifiers for the Super Lap.
The GT500 class Super Lap began at 15:11. Overall, the times were faster than in the first session, with the leaders competing in the 1 min. 41 sec. range. As the seventh of the eight to make his run, Tachikawa in car No. 38 bettered the other teams' times in the first and third sectors of the course, though running slightly slower in the second sector (from the ext of the second corner to the entrance of the hairpin), and finished with a lap time of 1 min. 41.609 sec. This beat the 1 min. 41.646 sec. lap of the No. 12 IMPUL CALSONIC GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda) by a mere 0.037 sec. to take the pole position.
For Tachikawa, this was his second pole position of the season, following the one at the opening round at Okayama. It is also the 15th PP of his GT career (GT record for most PPs by a single driver) and his fourth at Autopolis. For the Lexus SC430 camp it is the first pole position since the opening round.
The final Super Lap runner after No. 38 (Tachikawa) was Ito in car No. 6. Unable to beat his own time from the first session, Ito dropped to 5th position. Placing 3rd behind No. 12 (Matsuda) came the No. 1 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Benoit Treluyer), followed by the No. 36 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 (Andre Lotterer) in 4th.
The 3rd-ranked No. 8 ARTA NSX (Ralph Firman) qualified in 6th position. This made the ARTA NSX fastest among the NSX teams but left it behind its title-race rivals, No. 1 and No. 36.
On the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX team, driver Shinya Hosokawa had to withdraw from the competition due to a sudden fever and was replaced by Kosuke Matsuura.


No. 43 ARTA Garaiya
Good start for Garaiya for remaining title race!

The GT300 class pole was won by the No. 43 ARTA Garaiya (Shinichi Takagi) after a close battle with the No. 81 DAISHIN ADVAN Ferrari (Takayuki Aoki) in the first session gave Takagi the tentative lead. In the Super Lap, Takagi only managed the second fastest time through the second sector of the course but was very fast over the uphill third sector (from the 2nd hairpin to the finish line) and finished with a lap time of 1 min. 51.007 sec. This gave the Garaiya team their second class pole of the season, following round three at Fuji Speedway. For Takagi it was his fifth GT career pole.
Qualifying second fastest in class was the No. 74 COROLLA Axio apr GT (Takuto Iguchi). Despite having run only the 7th fastest time in the first qualifying session, Iguchi came back in the Super Lap with the fastest time of the entire GT300 field over the first sector of the course (start line to exit of the second corner) and negotiating the second and third sectors well to finish with a time of 1 min. 51.204 sec. Although this time fell short of the leading No. 43 (Takagi) by 0.197 sec., it was the highest qualifying position by the Corolla. This result gave the top two positions in class to cars running on Michelin tires.
The No. 2 apple K-one Shiden (Hiroki Katoh), which currently shares the ranking lead with No. 43, qualified 5th fastest in the first session and improved on that by one position in the Super Lap to secure 4th position on Sunday's starting grid. Meanwhile, the No. 19 WedsSport IS350 (Manabu Orido), which also shares the lead in the point ranking, dropped from 4th position in the first session to 8th place in the Super Lap.
On the No. 808 HATSUNE MIKU Studie GLAD BMW Z4 team, driver Yasushi Kikuchi was replaced for this round by Taku Bamba. The No. 110 KUMHO "ARKTECH SG-1" team withdrew its entry for this round. Also, the No. 666 FieLDS BOMEX 320R team could not qualify for the race because driver Shogo Suho failed to clear the qualifying time standard.

Richard Lyons / Yuji Tachikawa ,  Morio Nitta / Shinichi Takagi

GT500 Class | Pole Position

No. 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430

Yuji Tachikawa
This is our first pole position in a while, since the opening round. Things were going well for us in the early stages of the season, but the middle stages were rough. Before arriving here we discovered what had been going wrong and found measures to fix it. In the morning the machine wasn't really in good condition yet, but the team worked on it more and got things right in time for the qualifying. That is why we were able to win pole position. Our position now in the title race is a tough one (ranking point gap), so we are thinking only about winning here at Autopolis. That makes this pole position especially important.
Richard Lyons
During the morning practice the car still wasn't in good condition. But the team, Tachikawa-san and the engineer, Kato-san, kept working hard and finally got a good set-up. This pole will be a big advantage in tomorrow's race. To stay in contention for the season title, we can't afford to finish 2nd or 3rd here. Winning is the only way to keep our chances alive. We intend to win.
GT300 Class | Pole Position

No. 43 ARTA Garaiya

Shinichi Takagi
I am very happy. I'm not one to get nervous usually, but in this qualifying I certainly did. There are just two races left in the series and thinking about the series title and the next round, we knew we had to finish among the top teams in this qualifying. In the morning's free practice Nitta-san ran the fastest time and then was fastest again in the first qualifying session. After that I felt a lot of pressure to win the pole position and not let everyone down. In the race we will now be starting from the very front, which opens up a lot of strategic possibilities for us. I want to see the whole team work as one to get us on the podium tomorrow, or at least in front of our title race rivals.
Morio Nitta
We were working on the settings from the morning and we, as well as our rivals, were having trouble with under-steering. With the final Super Lap in mind, we set the machine up to have a slight over-steering tendency for the third sector of the course. As I watched Shinichi's driving in the Super Lap, it looked like the machine was turning well, so the setting must have worked as planned. Since we have the pole position now, everyone around us has big expectations. But I'm not optimistic. We still don't have a good match with the track surface. In the little time left before the race, we want to continue to work on the setting so we won't crash and no-point in the race and are able to finish in front of our rivals.
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