The official qualifying for the SUZUKA GT 300km RACE, Round 5 of the 2025 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, took place at Suzuka circuit (1 lap 5,807m) in Mie Prefecture on August 23rd (Sat.). In the qualifying that took place in hot conditions with the air temperature at 34 degrees Celsius. In the GT500 class, Sato in the No. 16 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #16 (Hiroki Otsu / Ren Sato) got his first pole position. In the GT300 class, Yamauchi in the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi / Hideki Yamauchi) took pole position to extend his record for the most class pole positions to 15. These two teams will start tomorrow’s final race on August 24th from the front row of their respective class starting grids.
□Official Qualifying Weather: clear | Track: dry | Air temperature/Track temperature GT300 Q1 at the start: 34℃/48℃, GT300 Q2 at the start: 34℃/47℃, at the finish: 33℃/46℃.
The previous Round 4 at Fuji was the first in the series to run two races in one round, and also to run with no Success Weight (SW) for any car. After a three-week interval, Round 5 was held at Suzuka Circuit and it was run in the usual SUPER GT format with SW applied.
Qualifying day saw hot conditions with the air temperature exceeding 34℃ from the morning’s the Official Practice. When the Official Qualifying Q1 started at 3:15 in the afternoon, the air temperature was 34℃ and the track temperature 48℃. The GT300 class Q1 began with the 14 cars of Group A.
The cars began their flying laps after a few laps for warming up the tires, and with 3 minutes remaining in the session before the checkered flag lap, it was the No. 7 CARGUY Ferrari 296 GT3 (Zak O’sullivan) that began its time attacks early. On its third lap it recorded a time of 1’58.413 that became the target lap time for the other cars.
In response to car No. 7’s time, the No. 60 Syntium LMcorsa LC500 GT (Shunsuke Kohno) ran a time of 1’58.706, and then the No. 4 GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG (Nobuteru Taniguchi) despite its 100kg load of Success Weight (SW) pressed hard to run a lap of 1’59.071 and move into 3rd position. Then a lap later, No. 4 brought its time down to 1’58.789, but it would be unable to improve on its position from there. When the checkered flag was shown, it was the No. 5 MACHSYAKEN AIR BUSTER MC86 MACH GO (Yusuke Shiotsu) that recorded a lap of 1’58.551 to move up into 2nd position.
As a result, no car was able to beat the time of car No. 7. With this, car No. 7 qualified on to Q2 with the top time. The 2nd and 3rd positions went to cars No. 5 and No. 60. Also, the top car in the series ranking, the No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG (Naoya Gamou) managed to finish in 8th position despite its heavy load of 100kg in SW and qualify on to Q2. Meanwhile, the No. 56 REALIZE NISSAN MECHANIC CHALLENGE GT-R (Kohei Hirate) finished just 0.003 sec. behind the No. 11 GAINER TANAX Z (Ryuichiro Tomita) in 9th position to finish in 10th position and fail to qualify for Q2.
Next to run was Group B, in which the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi) was quick to record a fast time of 1’57.787. This became the group’s target time. As the other cars in the group continued their time attacks, the series 2nd ranked No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3 (Charlie Fagg), also carrying 100kg of Success Weight, recorded a time of 1’58.151 to move into 2nd position. Third position went to the No. 9 PACIFIC IDOLMASTER NAC AMG (Yusuke Tomibayashi) with a time of 1’58.399 to also qualify on to Q2.
Again, with Group B the competition was very close. The No. 87 METALIVE S Lamborghini GT3 (Kosuke Matsuura) failed to move on to Q2 when it finished a mere 0.002 sec. behind the No. 96 K-tunes RC F GT3 (Shinichi Takagi) that had finished Q1 in 9th position and thus qualified for Q2.
After the running of the GT500 class Q1, the GT300 class Q2 began at ４:08 in the afternoon. The top nine cars from the two groups, for a total of 18 cars, would compete with time attacks in this 10-minute session. As in Q1, the No. 7 CARGUY Ferrari 296 GT3 (Rikuto Kobayashi) would begin its attacks early on and record a time of 1’57.179 that became the target time.
However, in Q2 there would be a car that beat this time. It was the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT that had run the fastest time in the Q1 Group B. Hideki Yamauchi ran an attack with a time of 1’56.869 to give him the top time in Q2. In response to this, Kobayashi continued his time attacks until the checkered flag lap, but he wasn’t able to improve on his time before Q2 ended.
As a result, the pole position went to the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi). With this, Yamauchi extended his record for most pole position wins in the class to 15, which put him one pole ahead of Shinichi Takagi (No. 96 K-tunes RC F GT3) with whom he had shared the lead until then.
Finishing the Qualifying in 2nd position was the No. 7 CARGUY Ferrari 296 GT3 (Zak O’Sullivan / Rikuto Kobayashi), and this was an improvement on the team’s best finish until then of 3rd position (in Round 2 at FUJI and Race 1 of the previous Round 4 at Fuji). Finishing in 3rd position came the No. 5 MACHSYAKEN AIR BUSTER MC86 MACH GO (Yusuke Shiotsu / Iori Kimura), which was also an improvement on its best finish of 4th this season (from Round 2 at Fuji). Finishing in 4th position was the No. 60 Syntium LMcorsa LC500 GT (Hiroki Yoshimoto / Shunsuke Kohno), which was its best finish since the 3rd position it took in the qualifying at the 2023 Round 3 at SUZUKA. As for the leaders in the Drivers Ranking, the 2nd ranked No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3 (Tomonobu Fujii / Charlie Fagg) finished the qualifying in 5th position and the 3rd ranked No. 2 HYPER WATER INGING GR86 GT (Yuui Tsutsumi / Hibiki Taira) finished the qualifying in 7th position, while the top-ranked No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG (Naoya Gamou / Togo Suganami) finished in 13th position.
