The Official Qualifying for the 2026 AUTOBACS SUPER GT Rd. 5, the “SUZUKA GT 300km RACE” was held on August 22nd at Suzuka Circuit (1 lap 5,807m) in Mie Prefecture. Being late in August, the air temperature rose to 34℃ making for a truly hot day. The Qualifying saw fierce competition with both classes seeing first-time pole position winners. In the GT500 class, Nomura in No. 17 Astemo HRC PRELUDE-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi / Yuto Nomura) ran exceptionally well for a GT500 rookie in Q2 to take his first pole position. As for the GT300 class, Tomibayashi in the No. 9 PACIFIC UMA MUSUME NAC BMW (Yusuke Tomibayashi / Yuta Fujiwara) took 1st place in the Qualifying by outrunning former several-time pole winners to take a first pole position for himself and for the team. These two teams will start from the front row of their respective class grids for tomorrow’s Race on August 23rd.
□Official Qualifying Weather: Q1/Q2: clear | Track: dry | Air temperature/Track temperature at the start of the GT300 Q1: 34℃/46℃, at the Q1 end: 33℃/44℃, at the GT300 Q2 start: 33℃/45℃, at the Q2 end: 33℃/42℃.
On this day at SUZUKA Circuit from the morning’s Official practice there was muggy heat, and in the Official Qualifying that started at 3:30 in the afternoon the Air temperature had risen to 34℃. In the GT300 class, 15 cars participated in the 10-minute Group A session that ran first, and the fastest nine finishers would move on to Q2.
Quick to run a fast timed lap was Hibiki Taira in the No. 30 apr GR86 GT with a time of 1’57.780. With this time as their target the other cars ran their timed laps. It was Tomonobu Fujii in the No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3 that was first to beat the time of the No. 30 GR86 with a lap of 1’57.324 to take the top time. After that no car was able to beat the time of No. 777. With this, No. 777 finished 1st in Group A, with 2nd position going to car No. 30, which was followed by Hiroki Yoshimoto in the No. 60 Syntium LMcorsa LC500 GT that had shown its speed in last season’s Suzuka race. As for Suzuki in the No. 32 ENEOS X PRIME AMG GT3（Hiroaki Ishiura / Tokiya Suzuki） that had gotten a podium finish at the previous round at Fuji, he could only finish in 12th position and thus failed to move on to Q2.
In the Group B session that followed, 14 cars competed. First, it was Takuto Iguchi in the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT, who had proven his speed in the Qualifying at Suzuka, who took the top time with a lap of 1’57.484. After this the other cars pushed to improve their lap times, but the time of No. 61 stood unbeaten until the end of the session. With this, No. 61 moved on to Q2 with the top time. Meanwhile, Yuta Fujiwara in the No. 9 PACIFIC UMA MUSUME NAC BMW followed in 2nd position. In 3rd position came Ryuichiro Tomita in the No. 11 GAINER TANAX Z, which featured a modified front grille to match the production Fairlady Z NISMO model. As for the other cars in Group B, the 2nd ranked No. 2 HYPER WATER INGING GR86 GT（Yuui Tsutsumi / Kazuhisa Urabe） and the No. 31 apr LC500h GT（Kazuto Kotaka / Miki Koyama） finished in 12th and 13th respectively, thus failing to move on to Q2.
The GT300 class Q2 session started from 4:23 in the afternoon. As both the Air temperature, the Track temperature dropped, 18 cars began their qualifying laps. Here it was Hideki Yamauchi in the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT who quickly recorded a fast lap of 1’56.981. The other cars then made this their target time. At this point, car No. 61 was the only one running in the 1’56 sec. range, thus making it look as if again Yamauchi in the BRZ would take the pole position.
Although last year’s SUZUKA winner, Zak O’Sullivan in the No. 7 CARGUY Ferrari 296 GT3 recorded a time of 1’57.412, and also Shunsuke Kohno in the No. 60 Syntium LMcorsa LC500 GT recorded a lap of 1’57.004, they couldn’t better the time of No. 61.
However, just before the showing of the checkered flag to end the race, it was Yusuke Tomibayashi in the No. 9 PACIFIC UMA MUSUME NAC BMW that brought his time down to 1’56.547. Also, Charly Fagg in the No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3 recorded a time of 1’56.551, but neither could better the time of Tomibayashi in car No. 9 before the Qualifying ended.
This meant that for both Tomibayashi and the No. 9 PACIFIC UMA MUSUME NAC BMW（Yusuke Tomibayashi / Yuta Fujiwara） team both got their first pole position. Qualifying in 2nd place came the No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3（Tomonobu Fujii / Charlie Fagg） and in 3rd place came the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT（Takuto Iguchi / Hideki Yamauchi）. Finishing in 4th place was the No. 60 Syntium LMcorsa LC500 GT（Hiroki Yoshimoto / Shunsuke Kohno）, while 5th place went to the No. 18 UPGARAGE AMG GT3（Takashi Kobayashi / Kotaro Shimbara） that had been fastest in the Official practice.
