2010 SUPER GT Round3

Qualifying #1 Weather:Fine | Course:Dry | Air Temp. 20°C | Track Temp. 34°C
Super Lap Weather:Fine | Course:Dry | Air Temp. 19°C | Track Temp. 32°C

Three SC430 cars stage hot battle of the clock

The first qualifying session started at 13:50. The first 30 minutes was a mixed session with the GT500 and GT300 classes running together. This was followed by two separate ten-minute sessions for each class.
The top eight qualifiers in this session moved on to the Super Lap. In the Super Lap, the eight qualifiers in each class run one timed lap one car at a time, and these times determine the order for the starting grid. The grid position from 9th place down are determined by each car's best time from the first session.
In the GT500, it was the No. 35 MJ KRAFT SC430 (Kazuya Oshima) that recorded the fastest time. The other Super Lap qualifiers in order were the No. 1 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430, the No. 6 ENEOS SC430, the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430, the No. 24 HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R, the No. 8 ARTA HSV-010 and the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R.
The No. 100 RAYBRIG HSV-010 had run the 8th fastest time and would have been the last Super Lap qualifier had it not been for a penalty incurred for passing another car after the Red Flag came out to stop the session while a fallen object was being recovered. This penalty requires that No. 100 start from the last position on the class grid.
Also, due to a lingering problem in the paddle shift mechanism that occurred during the practice session, the No. 18 Weider HSV-010 was unable to qualify any better than 12th.
The GT500 class Super Lap started at 16:05. The first runner was Benoit Treluyer in car No. 23, who recorded a time of 1 min. 34.562 sec. After that, the next four runners, Koudai Tsukakoshi in No. 17, Ralph Firman in No. 8, Joao Paulo Lima de Oliveira in No. 24, and Yuji Tachikawa in No. 38 were all unable to beat Treluyer's (No. 23) time.
As the track surface temperature gradually began to drop, the sixth runner, Daisuke Ito in car No. 6 was finally able to run a faster time. After gaining a 0.2 sec. margin of lead over the first sector, Ito succeeded in bettering Treluyer's time by a mere 0.025 sec. at the end of his 1 min. 34.537 sec. lap.
Ito's lead didn't last long, however, as the next runner, Andre Lotterer in car No. 1 bested his time with a 1 min. 34.358 sec. lap. This was faster than the best time of the first qualifying session and put No. 1 tentatively in position to grab the class pole.
However, none of these performances compared with that of the last runner, Oshima in car No. 35, who just turned 23 on March 30th. Through all the sectors of the track he ran faster than the competition to score the only time under the 1 min. 34 sec. barrier, at 1 min. 33.586 sec. This was a decisive 0.772 sec. faster than the next competitor and gave him the pole position.
This is the third PP for car No. 35 and its first since round six of the 2009 season at Suzuka. For Oshima it is his second personal PP, with the last being at round six last year.

No.33 HANKOOK PORSCHE

High-speed contest of the Porsches in GT300 class

The winner of the GT300 pole was the No. 33 HANKOOK PORSCHE driven by Masami Kageyama. With the fourth fastest time in the first qualifying session, Kageyama was the fifth to run in the GT300 Super Lap. Here, he bettered the fastest time run to that point by the No. 25 ZENT Porsche RSR (Takeshi Tsuchiya / 1 min. 43.417 sec.), beating it on all sectors of the track to score a time of 1 min. 43. 165 sec. to take the class pole.
This was the second pole position ever won by car No. 33, with the other being in last year's round two at Suzuka.
Qualifying second in class came car No. 25 in its debut race. This qualifying result for the new team headed by representative Takeshi Tsuchiya in its first SUPER GT race came with the new car delivered to the team just ten days earlier.
Qualifying 3rd in the Super Lap was the No. 74 COROLLA Axio apr GT (Yuji Kunimoto), which beat out the No. 43 ARTA Garaiya (Shinichi Takagi) also running on Michelin tires. A slight miss by Takagi in car No. 43 during that Super Lap dropped him to 5th position.
Edging into 4th position came the No. 66 triple a Vantage GT2 (Hiroki Yoshimoto). Yoshimoto moved up one position after qualifying 5th in the first session.
The No. 11 JIM GAINER DIXEL DUNLOP F430 (Katsuyuki Hiranaka) had qualified 2nd in the first session but spun out on the hairpin turn in the Super Lap. That ended Hiranaka's Super Lap without an official lap time, so the team will start the race form eighth position on the grid.
Regarding the 365 ThunderAsia MT900M (No. 365), the failure of driver Melvin Choo to clear the qualifying time standard prevented the team from progressing beyond the qualifying.