2010 SUPER GT Round2

The race began at 14:00 on a balmy spring day under clear skies. The strong winds of the day before had also abetted, making for perfect race conditions.
Loic Duval was at the wheel of pole-winning No. 18 Weider HSV-010. He got a good start and began to pull away from the pack with no difficulty. By the second lap, he already had more than a 1-second lead over the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430 (Yuji Tachikawa) running in 2nd place. As No. 18 began to lap the back of the GT300 field, that gap lessened somewhat, but not enough for No. 38 to get within striking distance before No. 18 made its pit stop. All four tires were changed and the pit stop took 38 seconds. It was more than the competitors but not too long to prevent the second stint driver, Takashi Kogure, to return to the race still in the lead.
Even through the second half of his stint, Kogure continued to punch out lap times in the 1 min. 27 sec. range. His margin over 2nd place grew to more than 10 seconds. As the 2nd- and 3rd-place machines became involved in an increasingly intense battle of their own, Kogure was able to maintain a safe margin of lead.
Kogure's pace didn't slow over the final stages of the race, and at the finish he had an 11-second lead over 2nd place. The No. 18 Weider HSV-010 has now won its first victory of the season.
Despite having won pole position in the opening round of the season, the No. 18 Weider HSV-010 team was unable to win the debut race of the new Honda HSV-010 GT. But this time, the team brought Honda a perfect win without ever giving up the lead from pole to finish.
For car No. 18 and Takashi Kogure this is the first win since round 5 of the 2008 season at SUGO. For Loic Duval, it is his first win since round 9 of the 2007 season at Fuji Speedway.

No.38 ZENT CERUMO SC430 The battle for 2nd place developed when the pit stop for car No. 38 (changing drivers from Tachikawa to Richard Lyons) took 37 seconds and allowed the No. 1 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 to move ahead into 2nd place. Driving car No. 1, Andre Lotterer had worked his way up from 8th position on the grid to 4th place. By limiting the tire change to the two rear tires, the team was able to gain another 30 seconds in its pit stop. But, with three laps remaining in the race, Wakisaka in car No. 1 got caught behind a GT300 class machine he was lapping, and Lyons in car No. 38 took advantage of that moment to pass him. From there, Lyons held on to finish the race 2nd.

No.1 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 Before the finish, Wakisaka in No. 1 was also chased by the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Ronnie Quintarelli/Tsugio Matsuda) but was able to hold his position and finish 3rd. This made the No. 1 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 the third team on the podium.
Having just missed a podium finish, the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R became the top GT-R finisher, in 4th. The No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R Satoshi (Motoyama/Benoit Treluyer) had to retire from the race after a collision with another car on lap 16. Unable to keep a fast pace, the No. 24 HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R (Joao Paulo Lima de Oliveira/Hironobu Yasuda) could finish no better than 12th.

In the early stages of the GT300 class race, the pole-starting No. 86 JLOC Lamborghini RG-3 (Koji Yamanishi) took the lead and gradually pulled away from the field. But, during its pit stop after lap 38, the refueling took an unusually long time, resulting in a total 57 seconds. In the second half, Yuhi Sekiguchi drove hard to try to regain the lost ground, even risking brush-ups with other cars in the process. Still, he was still only able to regain 4th position by the end of the race.
Taking the lead in No. 86's absence was the No. 7 M7 MUTIARA MOTORS AMEMIYA SGC 7. Driving the first stint, Nobuteru Taniguchi had passed one car after another. The team then gained additional time at the pit stop by going with their usual no-tire-change race plan. In the second half, Ryo Orima continued to run strongly at a steady pace. Soon after he took the lead, however, a problem developed in the machine's steering system and he ended up running off the track on lap 55. Unfortunately, the team was forced to retire from the race at that point.
This put the No. 46 Up Start MOLA Z in the lead. Although Naoki Yokomizo had been passed by car No. 7 in the first half, he had been able to maintain a fast and steady pace. The team took an orthodox race plan of changing all four tires at the routine pit stop, after which Tsubasa Abe took the wheel for the second half of the race. Abe also ran strongly and maintained the team's position. After car No. 7 retired from the race, there was no other car to threaten Abe (No. 46), as he ran on to the class win. This was the first win of the season for the No. 46 Up Start MOLA Z (Naoki Yokomizo/Tsubasa Abe), and it is the team's first victory since last year's round six at Suzuka.

No.2 Apple･K-ONE･Shiden
Finishing 2nd came the No. 2 Apple･K-ONE･Shiden (Hiroki Katoh/Hiroshi Hamaguchi). From his qualifying position of 8th on the starting grid, Katoh had steadily moved up through the field. As their rivals made their pit stops, No. 2 moved up into 2nd position. When Hamaguchi returned to the track as the second-stint driver after No. 2's own pit stop, he was in 3rd position. And when car No. 7 was forced to drop out of the race, No. 2 was once again in 2nd position. Because the No. 2 Shiden had retired from the last race after the first lap in the season opener, this was in fact Hamaguchi's debut GT race. Still he showed his ability to drive with a cool unexpected from a rookie.

No.3 HASEMI SPORT TOMICA Z Finishing 3rd was the No. 3 HASEMI SPORT TOMICA Z (Kazuki Hoshino/Masataka Yanagida). In Saturday's Knock-out qualifying, No. 3 had been unable to reach the third session and was forced to start today's race in 12th position on the GT300 grid. During the first half of the race, Hoshino had been able to climb to 8th position before making a somewhat early pit stop on lap 37. Taking the wheel for the second half, Yanagida also ran strongly, delighting the spectators with his technique when he passed the No. 33 HANKOOK PORSCHE on lap 63. This put the two Fairlady Z teams on the winners' podium.