The AUTOBACS SUPER GT Round 7, the “AUTOBACS GT 3Hours RACE” Official Qualifying took place on October 17th at AUTOPOLIS in Oita Prefecture (one lap 4,674m). Although AUTOPOLIS has not been blessed with good weather in recent years, this year it had fine autumn skies with an air temperature of 24 degrees Celsius. In these conditions, in the GT500 class, Okusa in the No. 64 Modulo HRC PRELUDE-GT (Riki Okusa / Igor Omura fraga) took his second consecutive pole position following the one in the previous round at Sportsland SUGO. In the GT300 class the pole position went to Yamaguchi in the No. 61 SUBARU BZR R&D SPORT (Takuya Iguchi / Hideki Yamaguchi) for the second time this season to advance his record for most career pole positions to 18. These two teams will start tomorrow’s race on October 18 from the front row of their respective classes.
□Official Qualifying Weather: clear | Track: dry | Air temperature/Track temperature before the start of GT500 Q1: 23℃/30℃, at the start of GT500 Q2: 22℃/30℃, at the end: 23℃/30℃.
The GT500 class Q1 started at 3:03 in the afternoon. After their first lap on the track, the cars warmed up their tires for one or two laps before starting their timed attacks. The first to record a time of 1’33.297 with just less than 2 minutes remaining was the No. 19 WedsSport BANDOH GR Supra (Sena Sakaguchi) that had been fastest in the Official Practice.
Next, the No. 8 #8 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT (Hiroki Otsu) recorded a time of 1’33.585, after which Nojiri in the No. 16 #16 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT (Tomoki Nojiri / Ren Sato) that had damaged its front end in the Official Practice but was able to complete repairs in time by placing a sticker over the carbon replacement part and managed to record a time of 1’33.458. However, neither of these were able to better the time of car No. 19. The next to record an attack time was the No. 23 MOTUL Niterra Z (Mitsunori Takaboshi), but it only managed a time of 1’33.577.
Then the No. 12 TRS IMPUL with SDG Z (Bertrand Baguette) recorded a time of 1’33.287 on its second warm-up lap to beat the time of car No. 19, but it was then the No. 64 Modulo HRC PRELUDE-GT (Igor Omura Fraga) that came in with a top time of 1’32.550.
Then the No. 100 STANLEY HRC PRELUDE-GT (Naoki Yamamoto) recorded a time of 1’32.957 to move into 2nd position, while the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Rikuto Kobayashi) ran a time of 1’33.253 to follow in 3rd position.
Meanwhile, cars No. 12, No. 19, and the No. 37 Deloitte TOM’S GR Supra (Ukyo Sasahara / Giuliano Alesi) followed, while the No. 17 Astemo HRC PRELUDE-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi / Yuto Nomura) that had won the previous round came up in 7th position, and the point-standing leader No. 36 au TOM’S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi / Kenta Yamashita) took 8th position, while cars No. 16 and No. 23 also progressed to Q2.
For the GT500 class qualifying Q2, the track opened at 3:41 in the afternoon. As usual, there was no immediate movement by the teams, but with 7 minutes remaining in the session the cars began to leave their pits one after another. Then, with just less than 1’30 seconds remaining, the cars entered a one-shot battle of time attacks.
First it was the No. 23 Z that pushed hard with flames roaring out from beneath its chassis to record a time of 1’33.270. Next it was Yuji Kunimoto in the No. 19 GR Supra that ran a time of 1’32.885. Then, following behind in turn were Kazuki Hiramine in the No. 12 Z with a time of 1’33.072, Ren Sato in the No. 16 PRELUDE-GT with a 1’33.124 time and Toshiki Oyu in the No. 38 GR Supra with a time of 1’33.121.
The next to attack was Riki Okusa in the No. 64 PRELUDE-GT, and he recorded the Top Time of 1’32.414. Okusa said that because the exclusive track time for the GT500 class was cut short by a Red Flag during the Official Practice session in the morning, which meant that a qualifying simulation could not be carried out but he said at the same time that the car and the DUNLOP tires had responded splendidly to his driving demands. With this, car No. 64 was able to take its second consecutive pole position following the one in Rd. 6 at SUGO.
This was followed by a time of 1’32.799 recorded by Yuto Nomura driving the No. 17 PRELUDE-GT. Despite carrying a heavy load of 90 kg of Success Weight in this round, the GT500 rookie was able to come through the qualifying in 2nd place for the second consecutive time after a 2nd place at SUGO. With this, the Honda HRC PRELUDE-GT was able to take both spots on the front row of the starting grid.
Finishing the qualifying in the 3rd place came Yuji Kunimoto in the No. 19 GR Supra with a time of 1’32.885, while Makino in the No. 100 PRELUDE-GT ran a time of 1’32.949 to take 4th place. Hiramine in the No. 12 Z also managed to take 5th place. Also, although Sho Tsuboi in the point-leading No. 36 GR Supra had managed to beat the Q1 time of Kenta Yamashita with a time of 1’33.268, he only managed to finish the qualifying in 8th place. It is from these positions that they will start the 3hours race and aim for top places.
