On May 3rd, Round 2 of the 2026 AUTOBACS series, the “FUJI 3 Hours Race GW Special” was held at Fuji Speedway in Shizuoka Prefecture (1 lap 4,563m). As in years past, this round was held during the Golden Week holidays and attracted large crowds of spectators. This Qualifying day began in an intense atmosphere. In the GT500 class, amidst fierce competition in Q1 and Q2 by the GR Supra GT500, the pole position went to Fukuzumi driving the No. 14 ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra (Nirei Fukuzumi / Kazuya Oshima). In the GT300 class, it was Yamauchi driving the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi / Hideki Yamauchi) powered by a new engine who set a new course record in the Qualifying to finish in 1st place. These two teams will start the race on May 4th from the front of their respective starting grids.
□Official Qualifying Weather: Q1 cloudy / Q2:cloudy and rain | Track: Q1 dry / Q2:dry to wet | Air temperature/Track temperature at the start of the GT500 class Q1: 20℃/26℃、at the end of Q1: 20℃/26℃、at the start of GT500 class: 19℃/25℃。
For the morning Official Practice, the Air temperature rose to 25℃,but by the time of the start of the Qualifying sessions both the air temperature and track surface temperature had dropped and strong winds were blowing.
First of all, the GT500 rookie Fraga driving the No. 64 Modulo HRC PRELUDE-GT recorded a time of 1’26.922, and on the next lap he brought his time down to 1’26.837. But that time was soon beaten by the No. 23 MOTUL Niterra Z (Mitsunori Takaboshi) with a time of 1’26.794.Then the No. 36 au TOM’S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi) recorded a time of 1’26.640.
However, near the end of the session the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Rikuto Kobayashi) came in with a time of 1’26.560 which advanced it to Q2 with the fastest time. In 2nd position came car No. 36 to once again give the GR Supra GT500 another one-two finish at the TOYOTA home course, Fuji Speedway. Finishing Q1 in 3rd position by bringing its time down to 1’26.725 in the latter stages was the No. 100 STANLEY HRC PRELUDE-GT (Tadasuke Makino).
Kobayashi in car No. 38 looked disappointed at the previous round at Okayama, comparing his third-place finish in Q1 to the pole position secured by his teammate Oyu in Q2 and he was also disappointed to be overtaken by Tsuboi in car No. 36 in the race, missing out on the win but with this performance he found redemption.
Among the Honda HRC PRELUDE-GT cars it was Fraga in car No. 64 who was fastest in 5th position, while Yuto Nomura driving the No. 17 Astemo HRC PRELUDE-GT finished in 10th position by a margin of just 0.465 sec., which meant that all of the GT500 rookie drivers succeeded in moving on to Q2.
When the GT500 class Qualifying Q2 session started at 3:31 in the afternoon, there were light rain showers falling at several parts of the course that led to a declaration of the track condition as Wet, but it didn’t actually have much effect on the track condition as a whole, and most of the cars ran the whole time on dry-use tires.
The first to record a fast time was Riki Okusa in the No. 64 HRC PRELUDE-GT with a time of 1’26.719 sec., but this was soon beaten by the No. 23 MOTUL Niterra Z (Katsumasa Chiyo) with a time of 1’26.582. Then the No. 14 ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra (Nirei Fukuzumi) recorded a top time of 1’26.254. Also, Yamashita in car No. 36 followed with a time of 1’26.418. On the next lap, car No. 23 ran the fastest overall time in the first sector of the track, but then seemingly deciding that it would not be possible to improve his overall lap time, he returned straight to the pit.
With this, the No. 14 ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra (Nirei Fukuzumi / Kazuya Oshima) took pole position for Round 2. Fukuzumi had taken pole position in Round 4, the second race of the previous season at Fuji, meaning that it was his second consecutive pole position at FUJI. Also, No. 36 au TOM’S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi / Kenta Yamashita), which won the previous round at Okayama and was carrying a success weight of 40kg, showed no signs of being slowed down, qualifying in 2nd place. In the end the TOYOTA GR Supra GT500 cars finished one-two in Q1 and Q2.
Ending the Qualifying in 3rd place came the No. 23 MOTUL Niterra Z (Katsumasa Chiyo / Mitsunori Takaboshi), while the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Toshiki Oyu / Rikuto Kobayashi) that had recorded the top time in Q1 of 1’26.614 ended the Qualifying in 4th place. The No. 64 Modulo HRC PRELUDE-GT (Riki Okusa / Igor Omura Fraga) was the fastest qualifier among the Honda HRC PRELUDE-GT by Qualifying in the 5th place, and will go into the race from that position.
