Round 3 of the 2025 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, the “SUPER GT MALAYSIA FESTIVAL 2025” was held on June 28th (Sat.) at Malaysia’s Sepang International Circuit (one lap 5,542 m x 55 laps). In the first Malaysia round since 2013, this official SUPER GT Round 3 race saw the GT500 class 4th-position grid starting No. 37 Deloitte TOM’S GR Supra (Ukyo Sasahara/Giuliano Alesi) chose a successful strategy of holding off longest to make its pit stop to take its first victory since Round 6 of last season. In the GT300 class, the pole-starting No.18 UPGARAGE AMG GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi/Yuto Nomura) gave up the lead at one point only to battle back to take a pole-to-win victory, aided in part by a rival’s mistake.

A SUPER GT Malaysia Round was held for the first time in 12 years at Sepang. The stands for the race were packed with many fans. The race got underway at 4:30 in the afternoon. In conditions that brought an air temperature of 33℃ and a track surface temperature of 42℃, after two formation laps, the race battles got underway.

Although the pole-sitting Nomura in the No. 18 UPGARAGE AMG GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi/Yuto Nomura) was able to hold the lead at first, by the end of the first lap, Nonaka in the No. 52 Green Brave GR Supra GT (Hiroki Yoshida/Seita Nonaka) was able to take the lead in an attack going from Turn 14 into Turn 15, after which he began to build his margin of lead from the second lap.

Meanwhile, following close behind No. 18 came the No. 0 VENTENY Lamborghini GT3 (Takashi Kogure/Yuya Motojima) and the No. 87 METALIVE S Lamborghini GT3 (Kosuke Matsuura/Natsu Sakaguchi). And following a short distance behind these top four came the No. 2 HYPER WATER INGING GR86 GT (Yuui Tsutsumi/Hibiki Taira).

After this there was a lull in the action in the battle for the lead, but behind 5th place began a battle between a group of cars led by the No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3 (Tomonobu Fujii/Charlie Fagg) and including the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi), the No. 56 REALIZE NISSAN MECHANIC CHALLENGE GT-R (Kohei Hirate/Yu Kanamaru), the No. 4 GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG (Yuhki Nakayama/Shunji Okumoto) and the No. 31 apr LC500h GT (Oliver Rasmussen/Miki Koyama).

After the 16th lap of the race, the car No. 4 that had emerged in 6th position made its pit stop. The team’s drivers were changed from Nakayama to Okumoto, and after this the GT300 class also saw cars of the leading group making their pit stops one after another. Meanwhile, slightly delaying their pit stops were the top two cars. The leading car No. 52 made its pit stop at the end of the 24th lap and changed drivers from Nonaka to Yoshida. Here, car No. 52 didn’t adopt the no-tire-change strategy that it is known for but instead changed all four tires, and in the process an accident occurred when one wheel nut went flying off. And in making the recovery of this it cost them a valuable margin off their lead.

In contrast, car No. 18 that had subdued last year’s champions, the car No. 0, made its pit stop at the end of the 26th lap. There, they changed drivers from Nomura to Takashi Kobayashi and finished their pit stop with no mistakes. With this, they succeeded in getting the lead back from car No. 52.

In the closing stages of the race, the leading car No. 18 had a lead of about 8 sec. over the pursuing car No. 52. The gap between the two varied with the intervention of GT500 class cars, but all-in-all it remained effectively a stale-mate. After this, what caught the attention of the fans at Sepang was the intense battle between Kogure in car No. 0 and Okumoto in car No. 4, with the former being last year’s champion and the latter running in his first GT300 race this day.

With the fierce battle for 3rd place going on behind it, car No. 18 seemed to be using its considerable margin of lead well on the way to victory, but as Yoshida in car No. 52 closed the gap, Kobayashi appeared to be unable to increase his pace to fend him off. On the final lap, the gap between the two leaders was down to less than 1 sec., but Kobayashi was able to hold out and keep his lead to the goal line.

With this, the No. 18 UPGARAGE AMG GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi/Yuto Nomura) effectively took a pole-to-win victory and its first win since Round 5 at Suzuka in the 2023 season. For Nomura, this was his first victory in SUPER GT. Also, for Kobayashi the Round 3 race at Sepang in 2013 had been his first victory in the GT300 class, and this day’s win made it a second consecutive win at Sepang over an incredible period of 12 years!

Finishing the race in 2nd place came the No. 52 Green Brave GR Supra GT (Hiroki Yoshida/Seita Nonaka), giving the team its first series points of the season and is first podium finish. As for the battle between cars No. 0 and No. 4, after a fierce duel, Okumoto was able to overtake Kogure on Turn 2 of the 47th lap. With this, the driver pair of the No. 4 GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG, Yuhki Nakayama and Shunji Okumoto, won an impressive podium finish.

Meanwhile, car No. 0 was also passed by another JLOC car, No. 87, with three laps remaining in the race. This dropped No. 4 to 4th position at the finish, but then it was determined that No. 4 receive a 40-sec. penalty for running off the track several times, which dropped it to 9th position. This moved the No. 0 VENTENY Lamborghini GT3 (Takashi Kogure/Yuya Motojima) up to 4th place. Finishing in 5th place was the No. 2 HYPER WATER INGING GR86 GT (Yuui Tsutsumi/Hibiki Taira), which move it up to 2nd place in the Drivers Standing.

Also, the No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG (Naoya Gamou/Togo Suganami), which had struggled under a Success Weight load of 72 kg (50 kg + refueling restrictor limitation) nonetheless worked hard to finish in the points in 8th position. With this, it was able to remain at the top of the standing.