The Official Qualifying for the SUPER GT Malaysia Festival 2025, Round 3 of the 2025 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, took place on June 27th at Malaysia’s Sepang International Circuit (one lap 5,542 m). In this Official Qualifying held for the first time in 12 years in Malaysia, the GT500 class was dominated by Kunimoto in Q1 and Sakaguchi in Q2 in the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi) to take pole position by a big margin with a new course record. In the GT300 class, it was the rookie Nomura in the No. 18 UPGARAGE AMG GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi/Yuto Nomura) who took pole position in Q2, also with a new course record. These two teams will start from the front row of their respective class grids in tomorrow’s final race on June 28.
□The Official Qualifying Weather: Q1/Q2: cloudy | Track: dry | Air temperature/Track temperature at start of the GT300 class Q1: 33℃/40℃, at start of the GT300 class Q2: 32℃/38℃, at the finish 31℃/38℃.
For the first time in 12 years, the Official Qualifying for Round 3 of the series was held at the Malaysia Sepang International Circuit on Friday June 27th, starting at 4:30 in the afternoon. Under cloudy skies the Malaysia heat was still evident with the Air temperature at 33℃ and the Track temperature 40℃.
In the GT300 class Q1, 10 cars ran as Group A, among which the top six cars would move on to Q2 to run their time attacks. Among these, the only car to record a time in the 2’02 sec. range was the local wildcard team entry (not competing in the official series), the No. 611 EBM GIGA 911 GT3 (Dorian Boccolacci). In the previous day’s first official practice as well, Boccolacci had shown his speed by recording the fastest time, and running in Group A in this Q1, he recorded a time of 2’02.623. However, on this lap it was judged that he had run off the track limits and his time was disqualified. Nonetheless, his time from the previous lap of 2’03.107 still gave him the 1st position, enabling him to move on to Q2 with the top time.
Taking 2nd position in the Q1 Group A was the No. 45 PONOS FERRARI 296 (Kei Cozzolino). Finishing in 3rd position was the No. 52 Green Brave GR Supra GT (Seita Nonaka). As for the No. 4 GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG team whose two regular drivers were not participating in this round, the GT rookie Shunji Okumoto competing as a replacement managed to take 4th position, while 5th position went to the No. 0 VENTENY Lamborghini GT3 (Yuya Motojima). As for the winners of the previous Round 2 at FUJI, the No. 6 UNI-ROBO BLUEGRASS FERRARI (Roberto Merhi Muntan), and the leading car in the series ranking, the No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG (Togo Suganami), they finished in 6th position and 7th position respectively to see their qualifying end with Q1.
Next ran the 9 cars of Group B. As the cars ran their time attacks one after another in their attempt to advance to Q2, the No. 31 apr LC500h GT (Oliver Rasmussen) and the No. 18 UPGARAGE AMG GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi) managed to record times in the 2’03 sec. range.
In the end, the top time in Group B of 2’03.165 went to the No. 87 METALIVE S Lamborghini GT3 (Kosuke Matsuura), thus moving it on to Q2. Also, finishing in 2nd and 3rd positions respectively were the No. 18 UPGARAGE AMG GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi) and the No. 31 apr LC500h GT. Failing to move on to Q2 were the No. 360 RUNUP RIVAUX GT-R (Rin Arakawa) and the No. 96 K-tunes RC F GT3 (Shinichi Takagi), as well as the wildcard entry No. 333 EBM Vantage GT3 (Kerong Li).
After the GT500 class Q1 was run, the GT300 class Q2 began to 5:23 in the afternoon. The No. 611 EBM GIGA 911 GT3 (Adrian D Silva) that had drawn big expectations by recording the top time in the Q1 Group A session would decide to return to the pit after just two laps out of fear of machine trouble when its warning lamp began to flash.
The first to record a time of 2’02.734 was the No. 87 METALIVE S Lamborghini GT3 (Natsu Sakaguchi) that had recorded the top time in Group B. With this as the target, the other cars made their time attacks. Then the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Hideki Yamauchi) moved into 2nd position with a time of 2’02.747, but just after that the No. 52 Green Brave GR Supra GT (Hiroki Yoshida) recorded a top time of 2’02.475.
The driver who would beat this time in the latter stages of the session was the former 2024 FIA-F4 Champion, Yuto Nomura in the No. 18 UPGARAGE AMG GT3 who made his GT300 class debut this season. He began to show his speed from his second official practice, and after recording a top time of 2’02.219 he went on to better that with a time of 2’02.110 on his next lap, the checkered flag lap of the session. This gave the No. 18 UPGARAGE AMG GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi/Yuto Nomura) team its first pole position of the season and its first since the one in Round 7 at MOTEGI in the 2021 season. For Nomura it was of course his first personal Pole Position.
Finishing in 2nd position in the Qualifying was the No. 52 Green Brave GR Supra GT (Hiroki Yoshida/Seita Nonaka), while 3rd position went to the No. 0 VENTENY Lamborghini GT3 (Takashi Kogure/Yuya Motojima). Another HURACAN GT3, the No. 87 METALIVE S Lamborghini GT3 (Kosuke Matsuura/Natsu Sakaguchi) finished in 4th position, while 5th position went to the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi). As for the No. 45 PONOS FERRARI 296 (Kei Cozzolino/Takuro Shinohara) that finished Q2 in 11th position, all of its qualifying times were disqualified by means of a violation of the turbocharger boost pressure limit.
