The official qualifying for the opening round of the 2025 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, the “OKAYAMA GT 300km RACE,” was held on April 12 at the Okayama International Circuit (one lap 3.703 km) in Okayama Prefecture. As with the 2023, this season’s qualifying is held in a knock-out format, and for both classes, the number of cars advancing to Q2 has been increased, making the qualifying even more exciting to watch. In the GT500 class, Fukuzumi in the No. 14 ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra (Kazuya Oshima/Nirei Fukuzumi) won pole position with his performance in Q2. In the GT300 class, Kataoka in the No. 4 GOOD SMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG recorded the fastest time in the class. With this result, these two teams will start from front position on their respective class starting grids in tomorrow’s race on April 13.
□The official Qualifying Weather： Q1/Q2：cloudy | Track：dry | Air Temperature/Track Temperature GT300 Q1 at the start: 23℃/31℃、GT300 at time of Q2： 22℃/29℃
Finally, the 2025 AUTOBACS SUPER GT Rd. 1 at Okayama. Blessed with fair weather over Okayama International Circuit, the morning brought a feeling of spring. At 2:00 in the afternoon before the start of the GT300 class Q1, the sky became increasingly cloudy, but the track was naturally dry and conditions good for the start with the Air Temperature was 23℃ and the Track Temperature at 31℃.
This season brought a new format for the qualifying, with a return to the knock-out format for Q1 and Q2 session as it had been until 2023. In the GT300 class, Q1 was contested by cars divided into Group A and Group B with 14 cars each, and the nine fastest cars in each group progressed to Q2 (one more car than previously). The times of the cars finishing from 10th to 14th in Q1 from the two groups and didn’t progress to Q2 were then compared and the car with the fastest time from the two groups earned 19th place on the starting grid, while the fastest car from the slower group would be assigned to 20th position on the starting grid, and the 11th place finisher from the faster group would be assigned to 21st position and so on down to the 28th position. As for the 18 cars that progressed to Q2 their times in Q2 would determine the pole position and their order in the qualifying down to 18th position.
In the Group A session of Q1, although there were some cars that ran off the track, the session proceeded with no accidents. As the showing of the checkered flag neared, the cars improved on their times one after another, but the top time went to Yoshiaki Katayama, who had gained an advantage by making Okayama International Circuit his home circuit and eventually recorded a time of 1’25.619 in the No. 6 UNI-ROBO BLUEGRASS FERRARI. The 2nd position went to the No. 4 GOOD SMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG (Nobuteru Taniguchi) by a margin of 0.309 sec. The 3rd position went to the No. 18 UPGARAGE AMG GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi), a team that had changed its car for this season. The ten fastest cars in Group A had times bunched closely within the space of 1 sec, and the competition was so fierce that even the winner of the 2024 season’s Round 1, the No. 2 HYPER WATER INGING GR86 GT (Hibiki Taira) could only finish in 11th position, thus failing to make it to Q2.
The winner of the top time in Group B was the No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG (Togo Suganami) with a time of 1’25.237 recorded at the end of the session. The 2nd position went to the No. 52 Green Brave GR Supra GT (Seita Nonaka) with a time of 1’25.419, while 3rd position went to the No. 45 PONOS FERRARI 296 (Kei Cozzolino). As for the No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3 (Charlie Fagg), it was involved in an accident in which its hood started to come off during a qualifying lap, but it was still able to finish in 4th position.
The GT300 class Q2 session started at 2:53 in the afternoon. As the cars continued to improve on their times as the end of the session neared, the first to get a top time of 1’24.579 was the driver tied for the record of most pole positions, Hideki Yamauchi in the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi). Just as it looked as if this would be the new record for him, his time was beaten by Fujii in car No. 777 with a time of 1’24.536 that put him in top position.
Finally, in the lap when the checkered flag was shown to end Q2, it was Kataoka in car No. 4 who surpassed No. 777 and No. 61 to get the top time in Q2. When he crossed the finish line the time was recorded as 1’24.420, which made him fastest of all 18 cars in the session. For the No. 4 GOOD SMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG (Nobuteru Taniguchi/Tatsuya Kataoka) this was its second pole position, following the one in 2017 at Round 8 in MOTEGI.
The 2nd position in the qualifying by a close margin of 0.116 sec. behind No. 4 was the No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3 (Tomonobu Fujii/Charlie Fagg). Meanwhile, 3rd and 4th positions on the second row of the starting grid for tomorrow’s race went to the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi) and the No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG (Naoya Gamou/Togo Suganami) respectively.
