The second Official test of the 2026 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series took place at Fuji Speedway. The first day of the tests took place on March 15th, and as it was a Sunday, crowds of race fans gathered outside the circuit gates from morning. Four-hour sessions were held in the morning and afternoon along with FCY simulation and start practice, and the GT500 class saw the au TOM’S GR Supra （Sho Tsuboi / Kenta Yamashita）score the top time, while in the GT300 class the fastest time went to the GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG （Nobuteru Taniguchi / Tatsuya Kataoka）
◎First test runs (Session 1: morning of the first day) 9:30 – 11:30 (11:30 – 11:45 FCY simulation) Weather: Clear to Cloudy / Track: Dry Air temperature:11℃ – 13℃ / Track surface temperature: 22℃ – 24℃
◎Second test runs (Session 2: afternoon of the first day) 14:00 – 16:15 14:00～14:15 start practice, (last 20 min. class separate) Weather: Cloudy / Track: Dry Air temperature:11℃ – 10℃ / Track surface temperature: 17℃ – 14℃
■ In the morning the REALIZE CORPORATION Z was fastest. Among the PRELUDE-GT cars the STANLEY was fastest in 4th position
The first day of tests on the 15th (Sunday) was held under blue skies, with the track surface temperature rising above 20℃ at the start of the Session 1. In the early stages of the GT500 class competition the No. 17 Astemo HRC PRELUDE -GT（Koudai Tsukakoshi / Yuto Nomura） ran in the lead, until it was overtaken by the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra （Toshiki Oyu / Rikuto Kobayashi）. Then the No.19 WedsSport BANDOH GR Supra （Yuji Kunimoto / Sena Sakaguchi）recorded the top time.
In the middle stages, there were no changes in the order of the top teams, but around one hour into the session, Miyake in the No. 24 REALIZE CORPORATION Z, （Teppei Natori / Atsushi Miyake） ran a time of 1’28.087 sec. that beat the time of the No. 19 GR Supra. As clouds began to form overhead, the wind began to feel cold. In the second half of the session, there was an accident in which the rear tires of the No. 100 STANLEY HRC PRELUDE -GT （Naoki Yamamoto / Tadasuke Makino）spun out at the GR GT Corner and it ran off the track, but it was able to return to the track immediately.
This session would finish with no further accidents. Until the end, it was the No. 24 Z that held on to the top time. This time gave Miyake a session’s top position for the first time since moving to the team. He said, “Since this was a test, there were things we didn’t know about what kind of test menus the other teams were running, and since it meant that we couldn’t get overconfident for that reason, but it was of course still good that we got the top time. I had just moved to this new team, but the tires are the Bridgestone tires I used last year and I had come with the same engineer, Simada-san, so there was not much that was really different and I believe we shared the same knowledge about the good things and the bad things we had done the previous year. Things proceeded well in the second session as well”, he concluded. Following car No. 24 came the No. 14 ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra (Nirei Fukuzumi / Kazuya Oshima）, and the No. 19 GR Supra cars, namely the HRC PRELUDE-GT and the STANLEY HRC PRELUDE -GT4 finishing in 4th position.
■In the separate sessions in the afternoon the cars improved on their times! The au TOM’S GR Supra records the top time by a margin of just 0.2 sec.
Before the afternoon’s Session 2 a Pit Viewing was held. Being a Sunday, many fans turned out to see the drivers and GT machines up close and enjoy an early taste of the real fun of SUPER GT.
The afternoon session began under a heavy cloud cover. First the two cars that had recorded the overall top times in Day 2 of the Official Tests at Okayama, namely the No. 36 au TOM’S GR Supra and the No. 52 Green Brave GR Supra GT （Hiroki Yoshida / Seita Nonaka）, took their positions as pole sitters and start practice was held. At this point in time, the No. 360 RUNUP × SOL GT-R (Rin Arakawa / Yu Kanamaru / Atsushi Tanaka） ran off the track in front of the Dunlop Corner while on its way to the dummy grid. It hit the guard rail and suffered damage to the machine. For this reason, the start practice was run by 42 cars, and they then went into their running session.
In the early stages of this session the leader was the No. 64 Modulo HRC PRELUDE -GT（Riki Okusa / Igor Omura Fraga） running on Dunlop tires. It recorded a time of 1’28.088 sec., just 0.001 sec. short of the lead time recorded in the morning session by the No. 24 REALIZE CORPORATION Z, and it was followed by the No. 39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD GR Supra and the No. 16 #16 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE -GT （Tomoki Nojiri / Ren Sato）.
During the final stages of the subsequent exclusive session for the GT500 class (10 minutes long), the cars improved on their times. the results saw Tsuboi in the No. 36 au TOM’S GR Supra record a time of 1’27.500 sec., which became the top time with a margin of 0.2 sec. over 2nd place. Because the No. 36 GR Supra team opted to run a menu of primarily long runs it didn’t appear among the leading cars on the Timing Monitor, but in the end, during the class exclusive time, Tsuboi ran a best lap and got the top time. Following this, came the No. 39 GR Supra in 2nd position and the No. 64 PRELUDE -GT in 3rd position, while in 4th position came the No. 19 GR Supra. The fastest among the Z cars was the No. 23 MOTUL Niterra Z (Katsumasa Chiyo / Mitsunori Takaboshi） in 7th place.
■In the GT300 class, the GAINER TANAX Z that made its first appearance in the afternoon session recorded the fastest time! The fastest time on Day 1 went to the GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG
In the GT300 class, the morning Session 1 saw Kataoka in the No. 4 GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG record a top time of 1’36.190. He commented, saying, “This season our maintenance garage was changed, and we also adopted a new chassis, so our work schedule was tight as we went into the Official Tests at Okayama, and because of the lack of time we ran into trouble. However, there was nothing that we didn’t know the cause of, so this time I feel that we were well prepared”. Said Kataoka. Following in 2nd position came the No. 60 Syntium LMcorsa LC500 GT （Hiroki Yoshimoto / Shunsuke Kohno）, while 3rd position went to the No. 30 apr GR86 GT (Hiroaki Nagai / Hibiki Taira / Manabu Orido）.
In the afternoon Session 2, the No. 11 GAINER TANAX Z （Ryuichiro Tomita / Kazuki Oki）recorded a top time of 1’36.259 sec. A week earlier at the Okayama Official Tests, the No. 11 team wasn’t able to prepare its car in time, so it skipped that test, and this time at the Official Test at Fuji they devoted the first day to a full shakedown of the car. Tomita said, “When we started out in the morning we checked the car’s setup. In the afternoon, as we did a variety of tire tests, we were able to get good times with the new tires. Up to this point we have really been trouble-free, and I believe this was probably a happy surprise for the team. When we first started running, I felt that the team and the mechanics were nervous, but since things went well and we got good times, to some degree I believe the nervousness declined and the tiredness went away.” These were his words looking back over the top time in that session. Following in 2nd position came the BMW M4 GT3 and in 3rd position the No. 9 PACIFIC UMAMUSUME NAC BMW （Yusuke Tomibayashi / Yuta Fujiwara / Rintaro Kubo） that had come in with a new car, while 4th position went to the No. 4 AMG.
On Day 1, the overall best time in the morning went to the No. 4 GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG. Although the team didn’t better that time in the afternoon Session 2, it did get in 100 laps of serious running in, so it seems to be going into the opening round of the season in good shape in terms of testing.
GT500 class・Day 1 overall Top Time
Sho Tsuboi （No.36 au TOM’S GR Supra）
“Today the air temperature was too low and since I was afraid that we wouldn’t be able to run tests properly, since we didn’t know about the conditions the other teams were running under in the final exclusive session, so I think it’s probably best not to rely on it too much. In the morning, there were some problems with the balance of the car’s setup, but as the result of some trial and error we found a fairly good setup. And since in the end we got the top time, it was proof that what we had tried had been successful and because the tires had performed well despite the coldness, I believe that to some degree we had gotten close to the right answers.”
GT300 class Day 1 overall Top Time
Tatsuya Kataoka （No.4 GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG）
“As we came into this season with a new team organization （a new maintenance company）I believe that we weren’t well prepared going into the Official Tests at Okayama, but this time we were able to come to these tests better prepared. Although the air temperature was cold, we were still able to go through the machine setup using some of the tires we had brought with us. Also, this season the BoP （Balance of Performance） has been changed and we have been able to check our setup with regard to that. For us, I feel that we are somehow close to the condition we were performing at last season. As for today’s top time, we were running on new tires with different timing from that of the other teams and the timing worked out well in comparison to the other teams. And although I am not especially happy about that, in another sense, it would have been worse for us if we hadn’t gotten the top time, and in that sense, it wasn’t bad, so I feel the result is something we can find motivation in, and that is good.”
