The Official Qualifying for the 2026 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series opening round, the “OKAYAMA GT 300km RACE” took place on April 11th at OKAYAMA INTERNATIONAL CIRCUIT (1lap 3,703m) in Okayama prefecture. As with last season, the Qualifying was run in a knock-out format. In the GT500 class, pole position went to the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Toshiki Oyu / Rikuto Kobayashi) thanks to the fine performance of Oyu in Q2. In the GT300 class Qualifying, it was Fujii in the No.777 D’station Vantage GT3 (Tomonobu Fujii / Charlie Fagg) who recorded the fastest time. These two teams will start the race from the front of their respective grids in the race held on April 12th.
□Official Qualifying Weather: Q1/Q2: clear | Track: dry | Air temperature/Track temperature of GT500 Q1 at start: 25℃/37℃, Q1 at the end: 25℃/37℃, of GT500 Q2 at start: 25℃/36℃, Q2 at the end: 25℃/36℃.
The official Qualifying of the opening round of the 2026 season at OKAYAMA International Circuit was held under clear skies, with a summer-like air temperature of 25℃, and a dry track condition throughout the day. The Qualifying was run in a knock-out format like the previous year, and in the GT500 class the top ten cars from Q1 progressed to Q2.
In the GT300 class Q1 Group B, a Red Flag was shown to stop the session, which caused a 7-minute delay in the start of the GT500 class Qualifying Q1, which would start at 3:40 in the afternoon. The cars took two or three laps to carefully warm up their tires before beginning their timed laps.
The first to record a top time was Nojiri in the No. 16 #16 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT (Tomoki Nojiri / Ren Sato) on the 4th lap, thus taking the lead with a time of 1’18.081. Following in 2nd position came the GT500 class rookie Kobayashi in the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Toshiki Oyu / Rikuto Kobayashi) with a time of 1’18.259. This was then beaten by the No. 39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD GR Supra (Yuhi Sekiguchi) with a time of 1’18.085 to move car No. 39 into 2nd position, which dropped No. 38 back into 3rd position. At this point, the car running in 4th position was the No. 12 TRS IMPUL with SDG Z (Bertrand Baguette).
Other teams also began running flying laps one after another, and with 30 sec. remaining before the checkered flag was shown to end the session, the No. 8 #8 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT (Hiroki Otsu) lost balance at the exit of the MIKEKNIGHT CORNER and crashed into the barrier on the out-side of the final corner. As a result of this, the Red Flag was shown and the session ended before it could be restarted.
Eventually, Q1 was restarted after the car was recovered from the track at 3:00 in the afternoon, with 4 minutes remaining in the session. Here, it was the No. 36 au TOM’S GR Supra (Kenta Yamashita) that recorded an amazing time of 1’17.681 on its first laps out on the track to take top position with a margin of 0.3 sec. over the car in 2nd place. In 2nd position came car No. 12 with a time of 1’17.992, followed by car No. 38 with a time of 1’18.059 in 3rd position. In addition to these, another rookie, Yuto Nomura in the No. 17 Astemo HRC PRELUDE-GT also recorded a time of 1’18.335 to move into 8th position and progress on to Q2.
The track was opened for the start of the Qualifying Q2 at 3:32 in the afternoon. One by one, the top ten cars from Q1 took to the track. The top finisher in Q1, the No. 36 (Sho Tsuboi), entered the track with 7 minutes remaining in the session and took two or three laps to warm up the tires.
Meanwhile, Toshiki Oyu, who had taken the wheel of car No. 38 in 3rd position from the rookie Kobayashi to drive in Q2, he had been passed by car No. 36 and after warming up its tires started its timed attacks on 3rd lap and recorded a fast time of 1’17.352. Then No. 36, after improving on its best times in the first and second sectors of the track, fell just short with a time of 1’17.417. With this, the pole position for the opening round of the season at OKAYAMA went to the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Toshiki Oyu / Rikuto Kobayashi). For Oyu, this was his fifth pole position and his first since the final round of last season at Motegi. And although it wouldn’t go down in the records, for Kobayashi he was able to contribute to the first pole position for the team in the GT500 the Qualifying.
The 2nd position in the Qualifying went to the No. 36 au TOM’S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi / Kenta Yamashita) and 3rd position went to the No. 14 ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra (Nirei Fukuzumi / Kazuya Oshima), which gave the TOYOTA GR Supra GT500 a sweep of the top three positions.
As for the Honda teams that are participating this season with the HRC PRELUDE-GT, the fastest qualifier was the No. 17 Astemo HRC PRELUDE-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi / Yuto Nomura) in 4th position, and of all 3 Nissan Z NISMO GT500 cars that progressed to Q2, the No. 12 TRS IMPUL with SDG Z (Kazuki Hiramine / Bertrand Baguette) was the fastest qualifier in 7thposition.
