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.
□The Official Qualifying Weather: Q1/Q2: clear | Track: dry | Air temperature/Track temperature at GT500 Q1 start: 33℃/43℃, at Q1 end: 33℃/44℃, at GT300 Q2 start: 33℃/42℃, at Q2 end: 33℃/43℃.
The 10-minute GT500 class Qualifying Q1 session began at 4:03 in the afternoon. After carefully warming up his tires, Fraga in the No. 64 Modulo HRC PRELUDE-GT (Riki Okusa / Igor Omura Fraga) recorded a best time of 1’45.254 to finish with the top time with no close competition. Other HRC PRELUDE-GT drivers, including Koudai Tsukakoshi in the No. 17 Astemo HRC PRELUDE-GT and Tomoki Nojiri in the No. 16 #16 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT were also among the leaders. However, moving in to take 2nd and 3rd positions came the No. 24 REALIZE CORPORATION Z (Teppei Natori / Atsushi Miyake) and the No. 12 TRS IMPUL with SDG Z (Kazuki Hiramine / Bertrand Baguette). Also joining the leaders in 6th position came the TOYOTA GR Supra GT500 car No. 19 WedsSport BANDOH GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto / Sena Sakaguchi) to manage to move on to Q2.
As for the No. 100 STANLEY HRC PRELUDE-GT (Naoki Yamamoto / Tadasuke Makino) that had suffered engine trouble in the Official practice, it was only able to run an insufficient number of just three timed laps, after which the team took time to change to a new engine before the start of the Official Qualifying in order to participate in Q1. However, it was unable to perform as usual and finished Q1 in last place. As for the series ranking leader, the No. 36 au TOM’S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi / Kenta Yamashita), probably due carrying 96 kg of Success Weight, it only managed to finish in 11th place despite the best efforts of its driver Tsuboi. Also, slowed by carrying the second heaviest load of 56 kg of SW, the No. 14 ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra (Nirei Fukuzumi / Kazuya Oshima) could only manage to finish in 12th position and thus failed to move on to Q2.
As the sun began to sink in the west, the Qualifying Q2 began at 16:41 pm. Here it was Rikuto Kobayashi in the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra who was first to take the lead. This car No. 38 had also become involved in an accident of a GT300 class car in the Official practice and had crashed into the retaining wall and had undergone repairs just in time before the start of the Qualifying Q1. And for Kobayashi, this would be his first time driving this day. This meant he was going into Q2 with no preparation.
It would be Okusa in car No. 64 who beat Kobayashi’s time with a lap of 1’45.206. However, just after recording this time, it was bettered by Yuto Nomura in No. 17 Astemo HRC PRELUDE-GT by a margin of just 0.077 sec. with a time of 1’45.129, thus taking the top time.
Next attempting to beat this time was Ren Sato in the No. 16 #16 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT who was running at a pace faster than No. 17 until he went into the Spoon Curve with too much speed and ran with 4 wheels off the track. Nonetheless, his time of 1’45.389 was second only to that of No. 64, but the time had to be disqualified. Though he went on to make another attempt, his time of 1’45.519 fell short, leaving him in 4th position behind the time of 1’45.504 recorded by Kakunoshin Ohta in the No. 8 #8 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT.
With this, the pole position went to Nomura in the No. 17 Astemo HRC PRELUDE-GT. For Nomura it was his first pole position in just his fourth race in the GT500 class, and for the team it was its first top position in the Qualifying since Round 2 at FUJI in the 2024 season, and for the Honda HRC PRELUDE-GT it was the second pole position in a row following the one in Rd. 4 at FUJI. The 2nd and 3rd places in the Qualifying went to the No. 64 Modulo HRC PRELUDE-GT and the No. 8 #8 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT, with 4th place also going to the No. 16 #16 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT, thus giving the Honda HRC PRELUDE-GT a sweep of the top four places in the Qualifying.
The fastest finisher among the NISSAN Z NISMO GT500 cars was the No. 12 TRS IMPUL with SDG Z (Kazuki Hiramine / Bertrand Baguette) that finished the Qualifying in the 5th place, while the fastest finisher among the TOYOTA GR Supra GT500 cars was the No. 19 WedsSport BANDOH GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto / Sena Sakaguchi) that finished in 6th place.
