The Official Qualifying for the FUJI GT 3 Hours RACE GW SPECIAL, Round 2 of the 2025 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, took place on May 3rd at Fuji Speedway (one lap 4,563 m) in Shizuoka Prefecture. On this “Golden Week” vacation day blessed with fine weather, the GT500 class Pole Position was won by Oyu driving in Q2 in the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Hiroaki Ishiura/Toshiki Oyu), which had suffered a crash in the previous round and had to repair its damaged machine. The GT300 class pole was taken by Fagg by running the fastest time in the class in the No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3 (Tomonobu Fujii/Charlie Fagg).
□The Official Qualifying Weather: Q1/Q2: clear | Track: dry | Air temperature/Track temperature at start of the GT500 class Q1: 19℃/31℃, at the finish of the GT300 Q2: 18℃/31℃.
The Q1 sessions of the official qualifying for Rd. 2 FUJI began at 2:30 in the afternoon with the GT300 class Group A session. As with the morning’s official practice, the weather was clear. This day’s qualifying would be run from beginning to end with dry track conditions.
In the GT500 class, Q1 of the qualifying started at 3:03 in the afternoon. The action began with the No. 8 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #8 (Nobuharu Matsushita) running a time of 1’27.233 on its 5th timed lap. Following this, the No. 3 Niterra MOTUL Z (Atsushi Miyake) recorded a time of 1’27.272, also on its 5th timed lap. However, it was Yuji Kunimoto in the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra who then ran the top time of 1’26.490, also on his 5th lap. Although Kunimoto attempted to better that time on his 6th lap, he fell short with a time of 1’26.556.
What’s more, the No. 16 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #16 (Hiroki Otsu) took 2nd position with a time of 1’26.814 on its 5th lap. The 3rd position went to the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Hiroaki Ishiura) with a time of 1’26.818.
With these results, Q1 ended as an exceptionally close-fought session with the times of the top 14 cars all packed within a space of 0.909 sec. However, car No. 19 stood one step ahead of the pack with a gap of 0.324 sec. over 2nd position and the rest of the field. Also of note was the fact that the winner of the opening round at OKAYAMA, the No. 1 au TOM’S GR Supra (Kenta Yamashita), was able to finish in 5th position with a time of 1’26.918 and qualify on to Q2 despite carrying 40 kg of Success Weight.
The qualifying GT500 Q2 session began at 3:41 in the afternoon. As early as its 4th lap of the session, car No. 16 (Ren Sato) recorded a lap of 1’26.367 to beat the fastest lap time of Q1. Then it was Toshiki Oyu in car No. 38 who set a new top time of 1’26.093 on his 5th lap.
Then, the fastest car from Q1, car No. 19 (Sena Sakaguchi), ran through the second and third sectors of the track with the fastest times to that point, which raised hopes for a possible pole position. But at the goal line its final time was 1’26.176, which left it in 2nd position behind car No. 38’s Oyu by a mere 0.083 sec.
With these results, the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Hiroaki Ishiura/Toshiki Oyu) team got its first pole position since Round 4 of the 2020 season at MOTEGI, while for Oyu it was his first pole position since the one he took driving the No. 8 ARTA car in Round 6 at SUGO in 2023. Of note here is the fact that although car No. 38 (Ishiura/Oyu) started from the first position on the grid for last year’s Round 6 at SUGO, because the qualifying for that round had to be cancelled and first position was decided based on the fastest time from the official practice sessions, it was not counted as a pole position.
Also, of note here is the fact that car No. 38 suffered serious damage in a crash while Ishiura was driving in this season’s opening round at OKAYAMA, but thanks to the diligent efforts by the team crew, the car was repaired in time to compete in this Round 2. In comments after the qualifying this time, both drivers Oyu and Ishiura said that they had driven with the intent of rewarding those efforts by the team. In a television interview after the qualifying, Ishiura was seen to have tears in his eyes as he spoke.
The 2nd position in the qualifying went to the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi), thus giving TOYOTA GR Supra GT500 cars both positions on the front row of the starting grid. The two positions on the second row of the grid went to two ARTA cars, the No. 16 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #16 (Hiroki Otsu/Ren Sato) and the No. 8 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #8 (Tomoki Nojiri/Nobuharu Matsushita) respectively.
As the only Nissan Z NISMO GT500 car to make it to Q2, the No. 3 Niterra MOTUL Z (Daiki Sasaki/Atsushi Miyake) driven by Sasaki recorded a time of 1’26.466 in Q2 to qualify in 5th position. As for last season’s champions, the No. 1 au TOM’S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi/Kenta Yamashita) qualified in 6th position, from which they will be aiming to extend its record for consecutive title wins.
