2010 SUPER GT Round6

Qualifying #1 Weather:Fine | Course:Dry | Air Temp. 32°C | Track Temp. 47°C
Qualifying #2 Weather:Fine | Course:Dry | Air Temp. 34°C | Track Temp. 47°C

Perfect Saturday for the ARTA HSV-010 team

The qualifying for this round was held in a "knock-out" format. In the first stage, the GT500 and GT300 class cars ran together and the main focus for the teams was getting qualifying times for each of their driver. During this stage the No. 666 BOMEX LIAN BOXSTER developed electronic system trouble. As a result, drivers Takamori.com and Satoshi Kimura were unable to run timed laps and clear the qualifying time. It will be decided whether this team can compete in tomorrow's race on the basis of results from race day's morning practice.
In the second stage of the qualifying the GT500 class session (S1) was run for ten minutes beginning at 15:20 with all cars scheduled to the make runs. However, the No. 24 HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R was unable to repair a mechanical problem during the allotted time and as thus unable to make its timed lap. Also, No. 6 ENEOS SC430 (Daisuke Ito) and No. 1 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 (Andre Lotterer) were unable to get a spot in the top eight and qualify for the next session (S2) when the No. 39 DENSO DUNLOP SC430 (Kohei Hirata) ran a fast lap at the last minute to grab the final place.
The fastest lap in S1 was recorded by the No. 8 ARTA HSV-010 (Ralph Firman). The second fastest time was run by the No. 17 KEIHIN HSV-010 (Toshihiro Kaneishi) and third place went to the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Benoit Treluyer). The fourth fastest was the No. 100 RAYBRIG HSV-010 (Takuya Izawa) while the fastest from the SC430 camp was Kazuya Oshima in the No. 35 MJ KRAFT SC430 in fifth position.
In the second session (S2), again the fastest time went to the No. 8 ARTA HSV-010. This time it was Yuji Ide running a time of 1 min. 55. 439 sec. That was more than 0.6 sec. faster than the second fastest time in the session, run by the No. 100 RAYBRIG HSV-010 (Naoki Yamamoto). In third position came the No. 17 KEIHIN HSV-010 (Koudai Tsukakoshi), giving the HSV-010 GT camp a sweep of the top three places. Running fourth came the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Satoshi Motoyama). In fifth and sixth places came the SC430 cars No. 32 EPSON HSV-010 (Yuhki Nakayama) and No. 39 DENSO DUNLOP SARD SC430 (Andre Couto) respectively.
In the final 10-minute session to determine the pole position and top eight grid order (S3), it was again the No. 8 ARTA HSV-010 team that provided the fans with the biggest thrill of the day. For this important session, team Manager Aguri Suzuki put the steering wheel in the hands of team's third driver, Takashi Kobayashi. This round marked Kobayashi's first-ever SUPER GT appearance, and he had run only about 30 laps in this car in total, including the practice runs. Still, he proved himself to be the equal of the GT veterans he was competing against by running a time of 1 min. 55. 839 sec. in his first time attack. After that, Benoit Treluyer in the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R and Takuya Izawa in the No. 100 RAYBRIG HSV-010 bettered that time, but Kobayashi continued his run and punched out the fastest lap time of the day, with a 1 min. 55. 237 sec. lap. After that, Treluyer in car No. 23 made another valiant effort but was unable to improve on his best time. As a result, Kobayashi won the pole position for car No. 8.
This is the first time the AUTOBACS RACING TEAM AGURI has won the pole position since the last round of the 2009 series. Meanwhile, by winning this PP, Takashi Kobayashi became the first driver in the history of the JGTC/SUPER GT to win pole position in his debut round in SUPER GT racing. Placing 2nd in the qualifying was the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Satoshi Motoyama/Benoit Treluyer). Third position on the starting grid went to No. 100 RAYBRIG HSV-010 (Takuya Izawa/Naoki Yamamoto), followed by two HSV-010 GT machines, the No. 32 EPSON HSV-010 (Ryo Michigami/Yuhki Nakayama) and the No. 17 KEIHIN HSV-010 (Toshihiro Kaneishi/Koudai Tsukakoshi) in 4th and 5th positions respectively.
In 6th position and fastest of the SC430 camp came the No. 39 DENSO DUNLOP SARD SC430 (Andre Cuoto/Kohei Hirata). The No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda/Ronnie Quintarelli), which went into S3 in 7th position, did not make its time attack in that session. Because this team had changed its engine before the qualifying, it was already decided by the regulation that its qualifying place would be dropped back ten positions on the grid as the penalty for the engine change. For that reason, the team opted not to run the final time attack in order to save wear on the tires it will start the race with.

No. 26 CINE CITTA' TAISAN PORSCHE

Top changes hands constantly in tight GT300 speed battle

The GT300 class S1 came down to a battle for top position between No. 43 ARTA Garaiya (Shinichi Takagi), with a time of 2 min. 08.007 sec., and the No. 11 JIMGAINER DIXCEL DUNLOP F430 (Tetsuya Tanaka) 0.1 sec. behind. Following in 3rd position was the No. 26 CINE CITTA' TAISAN PORSCHE (Shogo Mitsuyama). The two cars presently tied for the lead in the season title race, No. 7 M7 MUTIARA MOTORS Amemiya SGC 7 (Ryo Orime) and last years champion No. 19 WebsSport IS350 (Manabu Orido), failed to make it to S2.
In the second session (S2), the No. 5 MACH GOGOGO SHAKEN408R (Haruki Kurosawa) ran a time of 2 min. 07.505 sec. to take the lead. That was nearly 0.5 sec. faster than the second fastest No. 2 Apple?K-one?Shiden (Hiroki Katoh) with its time of 2 min. 08.003 sec. In this session, the No. 46 UP START MOLA Z (Naoki Yokomizo) presently standing 3rd in the series ranking and the round 4 pole winner, the No. 11 JIMGAINER DIXCEL DUNLOP F430 (Katsuyuki Hiranaka), both failed in their time attacks. Also, the No. 62 R&D SPORT LEGACY B4 (Kota Sasaki) just barely failed to advance to S3 by an excruciating 0.086 sec.
S3 began at 16:10. The first to set a top time was the No. 26 CINE CITTA' TAISAN PORSCHE (Shogo Mitsuyama) with a 2 min. 07.498 sec. lap. After that, the other teams tried hard to beat that time, but none could break the 2 min. 8 sec. barrier. That time was more than 1 min. faster than the No. 74 COROLLA AXIO apr GT (Takuto Iguchi) that eventually took 2nd position with a time of 2 min. 08.500 sec. This gave the pole position to Mitsuyama and car No. 26.
For Team Taisan, this is their first PP since the 7th round of the 2008 season at Motegi, when Nobuteru Taniguchi triumphed. This was the first PP for Shogo Mitsuyama in his JGTC/SUPER GT career.
Winning 3rd position on the GT300 grid was the No. 43 ARTA Garaiya (Morio Niita/Shinichi Takagi/Kyosuke Mineo). Mineo, who joined the two regulars as the team's third driver for this race, did not run in the knock-out sessions. Meanwhile, the 4th position on the GT300 grid was won by the No. 9 HATSUNEMIKU X GSR PORSCHE (Taku Bamba/Masahiro Sasaki/Mitsuhiro Kinoshita) had its third driver, Kinoshita, run the S3 session. This was the highest grid position this team has ever won in qualifying competition.