On May 13th, tests organized by the GT Entrant Association (GTE) got underway at Suzuka Circuit in Mie Prefecture. While the tests held the previous week on the 7th and 8th of May included GT500 class cars, this time only 13 GT300 class cars running on Bridgestone, Dunlop and Michelin tires participated. On this first day, 2 hours of tests were run in the morning and 2 hours 30 minutes of tests were run in the afternoon, during which the teams conducted their planned test menus actively at Suzuka Circuit.
・Running times: Morning session 9:00～11:00, afternoon session 13:00～15:30 ・Weather / Track surface: clear / dry ・Air temperature / Track surface temperature: Before start of morning session (8:50) 22℃/29℃, middle stages (10:00) 25℃/37℃, at the end of the morning session (11:00) 25℃/39℃, at the start of afternoon session (13:00) 24℃/40℃, middle stages (14:00) 25℃/40℃, at finish of afternoon session (15:30) 24℃/30℃.
■In the morning session the PONOS FERRARI 296 gets the top time, followed by the No. 60 LC500 GT and the No. 20 GR86
Despite a slightly cloudy weather in the morning the sun shone down strongly on Suzuka Circuit creating conditions like early summer. Participating in the tests this day were twelve GT300 class cars entering the 2025 season, including the No. 2 HYPER WATER INGING GR86 GT (Yuui Tsutsumi/Hibiki Taira/Kazuhisa Urabe), No. 11 GAINER TANAX Z (Ryuichiro Tomita/Kazuki Oki), No. 20 SHADE RACING GR86 GT (Katsuyuki Hiranaka/Eijiro Shimizu/Yuki Sano), No. 30 apr GR86 GT (Hiroaki Nagai/Manabu Orido), No. 31 apr LC500h GT (Oliver Rasmussen/Miki Koyama/Yuki Nemoto), No. 45 PONOS FERRARI 296 (Kei Cozzolino/Takuro Shinohara), No. 52 Green Brave GR Supra GT (Hiroki Yoshida/Seita Nonaka), No. 60 Syntium LMcorsa LC500 GT (Hiroki Yoshimoto/Shunsuke Kohno), No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi/Shunji Okumoto), No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG (Naoya Gamou/Togo Suganami), No. 96 K-tunes RC F GT3 (Morio Nitta/Shinichi Takagi), No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3 (Tomonobu Fujii), in addition to the No. 300 TOYOTA GR SPORT PRIUS PHV apr GT. This car is the same one used until 2022 for the apr cars No. 30 and 31, at which time the car was driven by Koki Saga as well as Hideki Nagai, who drove it in Super Taikyo for the same team, and also by Tokiya Suzuki and Kiyoshi Umegaki, who are competing in the FIA-F4 series this season and on this day were driving in the SUPER GT car for the first time.
At 9:00 in the morning when the first session began in conditions with the air temperature at 22℃ and the track surface temperature at 29℃, five cars were first to go out on the track at the start. After that, four more cars went out on the track, and a little later one more car, the No. 777 started for the track some 15 minutes after the start of the session with the plan of having just one driver, Jujii, driving in the tests. What’s more, the car No. 300 that had run in the GT300 joint tests organized by the GT Entrant Association in February at Fuji Speedway, had Nagai drive just one lap at the start before turning the wheel over to Saga. Also, it wasn’t until 30 minutes after the start of this morning session that car No. 45 finally left the pit to begin its run.
Just after 10:00 in the morning, Cozzolino in car No. 45 recorded a time of 1’57.135 on his second timed lap to move into top position. Meanwhile, most of the other cars were running laps in the mid 1’58 sec. time range as the session entered its final 30 minutes. At around this point many of the teams were changing their drivers, and it was around this time that they were seen to be improving on their best times, but none of them beat the top time. With this, the morning session ended with car No. 45 still holding the top time, while following in 2nd position was Yamamoto in car No. 60 with a time of 1’57.622 and Shimizu in car No. 20 following in 3rd position with a time of 1’57.674.
■In the afternoon session, FIA-F4 driver Suzuki in car No. 300 takes the top time. The No. 11 Z car and the No. 45 Ferrari take 2nd and 3rd positions respectively.
As 12 cars, excluding No. 2, continued to run, just before 30 minutes into the afternoon session, one car came to a stop at the Spoon Curve. To deal with the trouble, the Red Flag was shown. About 25 minutes later the session was re-started, and just after the start, the No. 2 car that had not been running finally entered the track to begin its run just before 2:30 in the afternoon.
At this point it was car No. 45 that held the top time. But this time had still not bettered the fastest time from the morning session. It was here that Suzuki, who was driving car No. 300 for the first time, became the first to record a strong time in the 1’56 range to claim the top spot. Then, five laps later, he bettered his own top time to 1’56.827. With this seeming to spark the cars entered in this season’s SUPER GT series, Tomita in car No. 11 increased his pace to record a time of 1’57.417, and then Cozzolino in car No. 45 followed that with a time of 1’57.474, after which the first day’s sessions came to an end.
As with this day, tomorrow’s tests will begin at 9:00 in the morning for 2 hours, and in the afternoon, the sessions are scheduled to start from 1:00 and run for 2 and a half hours.
■GT300
No.2 HYPER WATER INGING GR86 GT Yuui Tsutsumi “Since the size of the front tires used this year has gotten smaller, it has changed the capacity of the tires. And because of the fact that there has been a lot of rain during this year’s tests, it has made it difficult to work on dry track condition settings, and that has made the start of the season tough for us. The fact that the weather is good and stable for these two days of tests I expect they will be a good opportunity. I hope that we will be able to work hard with Bridgestone to do serious tests and find good tires. The next round at Sepang will be a new experience (for us), so probably a lot of adjustments will be necessary, and I hope that we can make those adjustments well in the practice sessions. I also hope that we can get some series points at Sepang to get good momentum for the middle and final stages of the season.”
No.11 GAINER TANAX Z Kazuki Oki “Last year, since at Suzuka (although we were entered in the final round) I was not able to record times before it ended, I went into the opening round at Okayama with the feeling of a rookie, even with the experience I had from last year. I still feel that I can’t compare with Tomita（Ryuichiro）, but I feel that I was able to adjust more quickly than I expected. Also, our car has been updated since Fuji and there are many positive elements, what’s more, the contents of the Day 1 morning tests went well. Looking toward the middle stages of the series, I want to show that, like a rookie, I can get good times in terms of one-shot speed performance. I also think it will be great if we can get pole position. I want to make it a memorable race.
No.45 PONOS FERRARI 296 Takuro Shinohara “This season (having moved to the team just before the opening round) I went into the opening round with almost no preparation, but the team, and especially Kei (Cozzolino) made time in the Official Practice session for me to get plenty of running time, and because they also gave me pointers about what to be careful of in the qualifying, I was able to get good qualifying results at both Okayama and Fuji. Especially at Fuji, where I was given Q1 to run, I think I was able to come back well from it (having qualified on to Q2). For me, these are the first tests of the season, I hope to learn as much as possible about the car and the tires so I can get good results in Round 3. Of course, I believe I was brought to the team with hopes that I can contribute to winning races, so I want to work hard to get results as quickly as possible.”
No.60 Syntium LMcorsa LC500 GT Hiroki Yoshimoto “From the initial shake-down I have gotten a good impression of the car itself, but we weren’t able to turn that into good results from the opening round, and there is still distance between us and the top cars. Because with our pace were still losing 1.5 sec. per lap. Since we are unable to race as we want to, we are concentrating mainly on tire tests this time, but there are also many things we want to try with the car set-up, etc. Looking to (the next round) Sepang these will be our last tests, so I hope we will be able to make a good choice of tires that fit out car. Thinking in terms of the car’s character, Sepang should be good for us, so I want to see us try a variety of things in these two days.”
No.65 LEON PYRAMID AMG Togo Suganami “For the opening round at Okayama we thought that we could go for the win, and from there we went on to get the win in good fashion. At Fuji, since we were carrying 50 kg of Success Weight, we had a disadvantage in speed against our rivals, but as a team we fought strongly and got a 5th-place finish. However, when we think about the championship, I still feel that we are inferior to them. So, now we are thinking about what we can do to improve our performance from the middle stages of the races onward. (For us) it will be our first time racing at Sepang, so we don’t know what to expect. Since the necessary tire matching and machine set-up will be completely different, it will be hard to get things right. And because we won’t know anything until we try, I want to see us battle using our overall strength.”
No.96 K-tunes RC F GT3 Morio Nitta “As a team, we have entered this season with a new organization and with new engineers, but up until now I feel that we have been able to consistently run races that get us series points even in situations that would have put us behind in the past. Since the direction of the machine set-up is different now in a number of ways, we still are lacking in data, but I remain optimistic for the future. As a result, the car setting is different from those we had for Suzuka last year, so in these tests I want to see us check these things out thoroughly. About the next round at Sepang…, I only have rather vague memories (of our previous) races there (wry laugh). That time, it was very hot during the race, but this time (with an evening start) it looks like there is a chance it could be in a squall. If the time changes the track conditions change, so I think we will have to race depending on memories of such conditions.”
No.300 TOYOTA GR SPORT PRIUS PHV apr GT Tokiya Suzuki “This time, I am driving a SUPER GT car for the first time. I started driving from the afternoon session and I began just at the time of a Red Flag. After that, I started driving again after having a change to a new set of tires, and it happened that I got a faster time. I think it was because the track condition and the air temperature fit the tires just right. It was my first time in a SUPER GT car, but since I am also driving this season in Super Taikyu (as well as FIA-F4), I didn’t feel scared at all about driving a SUPER GT car, so I was able to get used to it right away. The balance of the car itself is quite good, so it was fun to drive. I think that if I can get in more laps I can improve more on my times, and I hope everyone will look forward to that tomorrow. I hope that doing tests can offer opportunities that will be beneficial in my career as a driver. Since I have been given this good opportunity, I want to do my best take advantage of it.”
No.300 TOYOTA GR SPORT PRIUS PHV apr GT Kiyoshi Umegaki “Since I am just 17 years old, I still haven’t gotten my (general) driver’s license yet. To begin with, since I have only been driving in formula car races, the SUPER GT machine feels heavy to me, and it was difficult for me to get used to the difference (in feeling) compared to a formula car. However, as I gradually increased the pace my times got faster. Still, I feel there are places that I haven’t gotten really used to yet. This year I am competing in FIA-F4 and the Formula Regional Japanese Championship and compared to them the SUPER GT machine’s acceleration and deceleration are more difficult than I imagined they would be. However, if I don’t rush and stay calm, I hope I can absorb a lot, and I think I have done that. While I’m glad that I was able to get through today’s tests, my times are still far from the top times, so I want to look at the data to see how I can improve. I want to research that. I want to make all the efforts I can to grab more chances like this going forward.”
