【Round 4 FUJI: Race 2】 Qualifying GT300: D’station Vantage GT3 wins pole position, aiming for a double win with Race 1

The Official Qualifying for Race 2 of the “FUJI GT SPRING RACE, Round 4 of the 2025 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, was held on August 3rd at FUJI Speedway (one lap 4,563 m) in Shizuoka Prefecture. This time, two sprint races were run by a different driver from Race 1. In the GT500 class Nirei Fukuzumi in the No. 14 ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra got a hard-earned pole position in the machine that had suffered a crash in Race 1 and was repaired in time for this qualifying. In the GT300 class, carrying on the momentum from yesterday’s Race 1, Tomonobu Fujii drove the No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3 to a consecutive class pole position for the team in its aim for a second straight win. Race 2 was run as two separate 50-minute sprint races with the GT300 class race starting at 2:15 in the afternoon and the GT500 class starting at 4:50 in the afternoon, and these two pole winners started from the front row in their respective races.

□ Official Qualifying Weather: clear｜Track: dry ｜ Air temperature/Track surface temperature at start of the GT300 Qualifying: 33℃/54℃, at finish of GT300 Qualifying: 34℃/59℃.

■ Quiet start to the early stages of the Race 2 Qualifying. Many cars started their runs from the middle stages of the session

The 20-minute GT300 class Official Qualifying was run from 11:00 in the morning.

There were three cars that took to the track as soon as it opened for the session. Then the other cars started taking to the track after it had been open for some 9 to 11 minutes. After their first lap on the track, the cars timed the start of their flying laps after 4 or 5 laps.

When the session’ remaining time came down to about 2 minutes, the top time changed hands rapidly. The initial target time for pole position became the time of 1’27.388 recorded by No. 7 CARGUY Ferrari 296 GT3 (Zak O’Sullivan). Then 2nd position became the time of 1’37.479 by car No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG (Togo Suganami). After that the top teams improved on their best times one after another.

■ Fujii in car No. 777 becomes to only one to record a time in the 1’36 sec. range. All the other cars after No. 4 finish in a tight group timewise.

Among them, the top time of 1’37.379 recorded by the No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3 car that had wone the previous day’s Race 1, and for Race 2 the driver was Tomonobu Fujii. That time was beaten for a while by the No. 2 HYPER WATER INGING GR86 GT（Yuui Tsutsumi, but then Fujii came back with an even faster time of 1’36.888, making it the only car to record a time in the 1’36 sec. range. As a result, No. 777 would start Race 2 from pole position.

With it possible to continue running time attacks into the final checkered Flag lap of the session, the car that would finish in 2nd position with a time of 1’37.275 was the No. 4 GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG (Nobuteru Taniguchi) that had finished 2nd in Race 1 the day before. The 3rd qualifying position went to the No. 52 Green Brave GR Supra GT (Seita Nonaka) with a time of 1’37.165. As for 4th position, it went to the No. 18 UPGARAGE AMG GT3 (Yuto Nomura), while 5th position went to the No. 2 HYPER WATER INGING GR86 GT (Yuui Tsutsumi).