The Official Qualifying for the FUJI GT 3 Hours RACE GW SPECIAL, Round 2 of the 2025 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, took place on May 3rd at Fuji Speedway (one lap 4,563 m) in Shizuoka Prefecture. On this “Golden Week” vacation day blessed with fine weather, the GT500 class Pole Position was won by Oyu driving in Q2 in the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Hiroaki Ishiura/Toshiki Oyu), which had suffered a crash in the previous round and had to repair its damaged machine. The GT300 class pole was taken by Fagg by running the fastest time in the class in the No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3 (Tomonobu Fujii/Charlie Fagg).
□The Official Qualifying Weather: Q1/Q2: clear | Track: dry | Air temperature/Track temperature at start of the GT300 class Q1: 20℃/33℃, at the start of the GT300 Q2: 19℃/31℃.
The 2025 AUTOBACS SUPER GT season that started in April now entered Round 2 at Fuji Speedway. Currently a fixture of Japan’s “Golden Week” holidays, this round’s qualifying day brought sunny May weather from morning, with the air temperature at a comfortable 20℃ that welcomed many spectators to the venue from the morning hours.
The official qualifying 10-minute Q1 sessions began from 2:30 in the afternoon. The first to run in the GT300 class, which had seen close competition from the morning’s official practice, were the 14 cars of the Q1 Group A. Here, they competed to be among the top nine cars that would qualify on to Q2, and it was the No. 7 CARGUY FERRARI 296 GT3 (Zak O’Sullivan) and the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi) that would alternately set and reset the top time.
In the end, the top time in Group A of 1’36.063 went to car No. 61. This was followed in 2nd position by car No. 7 and in 3rd position by the No. 56 REALIZE NISSAN MECHANIC CHALLENGE GT-R (Kohei Hirate). Meanwhile, there was an unexpected upset in which last year’s GT300 champions and also winners of last season’s Round 2 at FUJI, the No. 0 VENTENY Lamborghini GT3 (Takashi Kogure) was unable to move on to Q2.
After an 8-minute interval, the Q1 session for the 14-cars of Group B got underway. The first to set a target time in the 1’36 sec. range was the No. 52 Green Brave GR Supra GT (Hiroki Yoshida). However, it was eventually the No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3 (Tomonobu Fujii) that beat this and became the first car in the GT300 class official qualifying to record a time in the 1’35 sec. range. Eventually, no other car was able to beat its time of 1’35.674, thus making it the top qualifier for Q2.
Qualifying in 2nd position was Iori Kimura driving the No. 5 MACHSYAKEN AIR BUSTER MC86 MACH GO. Although his time of 1’36.070 fell just short of the 1’35 sec. range, it enabled the team to move on to Q2 for the second consecutive time this season. Qualifying in 3rd position came Yoshida in the No. 52 Green Brave GR Supra GT.
After the running of the GT500 class Q1 session, the GT300 class Q2 session began at 3:23 in the afternoon. It was contested by the 18 cars that cleared Q1. The cars began by running laps to warm up their tires. Entering the final three minutes of the session, the cars began to improve on their best times one after another.
As the leading cars posted times in the 1’35 to 36 sec. range, it was the same two cars that had been fastest in Q1 that recorded the best times by far. Here it was Hideki Yamauchi in the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT who ran a time of 1’34.882 that left the others far behind. However, it would be Charlie Fagg in the No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3 who beat even that time. Running a time of 1’34.820, Fagg would beat the time of Yamauchi – who is not only the FUJI course record holder but also holder of the record for most career pole positions – to come out on top by 0.062 sec.
With this, car No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3 (Tomonobu Fujii/Charlie Fagg) won its first pole position since Round 3 at SUZUKA of the 2024 season. Qualifying in 2nd position came the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi), meaning it will share a spot on the front row of the starting grid for the final race on Sunday the 4th. Following in 3rd position came the No. 7 CARGUY FERRARI 296 GT3 (Zak O’Sullivan/Rikuto Kobayashi/Keita Sawa), while 4th position went to the No. 5 MACHSYAKEN AIR BUSTER MC86 MACH GO (Yusuke Shiotsu/Iori Kimura).
