The Official Qualifying for the SUPER GT Malaysia Festival 2025, Round 3 of the 2025 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, took place on June 27th at Malaysia’s Sepang International Circuit (one lap 5,542 m). In this Official Qualifying held for the first time in 12 years in Malaysia, the GT500 class was dominated by Kunimoto in Q1 and Sakaguchi in Q2 in the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi) to take pole position by a big margin with a new course record. In the GT300 class, it was the rookie Nomura in the No. 18 UPGARAGE AMG GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi/Yuto Nomura) who took pole position in Q2, also with a new course record. These two teams will start from the front row of their respective class grids in tomorrow’s final race on June 28.
□Weather: Q1/Q2: cloudy | Track: dry | Air temperature/Track temperature at start of the GT500 class Q1: 33℃/40℃, at start of the GT500 class Q2: 31℃/38℃, at the finish 31℃/36℃.
The knock-out format Official Qualifying started at 4:30 in the afternoon local time. Being in a afternoon session, the Air temperature stood at 33℃. However, since both the Air temperature and Track temperature were not as high as feared, it brough fierce competition that saw the existing course records beaten by large margins in both classes.
The course was opened for the GT500 class Q1 at 5:03 in the afternoon. In this session, the top 10 car would win the right to move on to Q2. As the cars began their runs, the track conditions improved steadily, and as the times improved accordingly, half of the cars waited in their pits watching the action before beginning their runs
The leader in the series point standings, the No. 1 au TOM’S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi) entered the course with 7 just under minutes remaining in the session. Since No. 1 led the series with 35 points, it was already carrying a Success Weight load of 70 kg by the third round. In actuality, this included a two-rank lowering of the fuel flow restrictor and 36 kg of actual weights, which meant it was competing with a considerable disadvantage.
Next to take to leave their pits and take to the track one after the other with just under 6 min. 40 sec. remaining in the session were the No. 12 TRS IMPUL with SDG Z (Bertrand Baguette), the No. 16 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #16 (Ren Sato) and the No. 37 Deloitte TOM’S GR Supra (Ukyo Sasahara).
After that, No. 17 Astemo CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi) and the No. 100 STANLEY CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Naoki Yamamoto) began their runs. Finally, when the No. 64 Modulo CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Riki Oklusa) let its pit with 5 min. left in the session, all 15 cars were on the track and running. Here, it was Yamamoto in car No. 100 who immediately recorded a time of 1’2.876 on its second timed lap. Next, it was car No. 12 that recorded a time of 1’51.675 on its 3rd timed lap, followed by the No. 8 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #8 (Nobuharu Matsushita) with a time of 1’51.368 on the 4th lap to further lower the time. Then, No. 19 recorded a top time of 1’51.083.
From here, No. 19 continued its time attacks and succeeded in recording the only time in the 1’50 sec. time range in Q1 with a lap of 1’50.856 on the 5th timed lap. Finishing in 2nd position came car No. 17 with a time of 1’51.077, followed by car No. 64 in 3rd position with a time of 1’51.113. As for car No. 1, it managed to record a time of 1’51.702 to finish in 10th position and succeeded in moving on to Q2.
In addition, two Nissan Z NISMO GT500 cars, the No. 3 Niterra MOTUL Z (Atsushi Miyake) finished in 7th position and car No. 12 in 9th position also progressed to Q2. Meanwhile, car No. 100, which had suddenly showed its speed from its 2nd lap timed lap to record a best time of 1’51.772, would eventually remaine there and finish the session in 11th position in by a margin of just 0.07 sec. behind car No. 1, thus ending its qualifying in Q1.
The course was opened to begin the GT500 class Q2 at 5:41 in the afternoon. However, the exhaust pipe of the No. 39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD GR Supra (Sacha Fenestraz) that recorded the top time in the second official practice session suddenly began to spurt out flames and white smoke, which brough No. 39 to a stop at trackside. This brought out the Red Flag to stop the session. After No. 39 was removed from the track, the session was restarted at 5:50 in the afternoon.
With this, the No. 17 (Syun Koide) and No. 64 (Takuya Izawa) came out on the track after a short delay. With this, the other 7 cars immediately began their runs. It was then with just under 1 min. remaining in the sessions that the cars began their serious time attacks. The car No. 64 that had delayed entering the track was first to record a time of 1’50.388 on its 3rd lap, then car No. 3 (Daiki Sasaki) also ran a time of 1’50.580 to beat No. 19’s top time from Q1.
However, it was then Sakaguchi in car No. 19 who beat the best times from all of the previous sessions with an amazing time of 1’49.748.
After that, as the other cars continued their time attacks one after another, car No. 8 (Tomoki Nojiri) fell short of that with a time of 1’50.350, and No. 37 (Giuliano Alesi) also fell short with a time of 1’50.493, and eventually car No. 19 took pole position by a margin of more than 6 sec. over the 2nd-position finishers and downward. For the team, it was their first pole position since Rd. 6 at SUGO in the 2022 season, and for Sakaguchi it was his 5th pole since that time.
Finishing the Qualifying in 2nd position was the No. 8 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #8 (Tomoki Nojiri/Nobuharu Matsushita), while 3rd position went to the No. 64 Modulo CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Takuya Izawa/Riki Okusa), and as for the Nissan Z NISMO GT500 cars, the No. 3 Niterra MOTUL Z (Daiki Sasaki/Atsushi Miyake) finished in 5th position and the No. 12 TRS IMPUL with SDG Z (Kazuki Hiramine/Bertrand Baguette) finished in 6th position. As for the No. 1 au TOM’S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi/Kenta Yamashita) that managed to advance to Q2 despite carrying the heaviest Success Weight load of 70 kg, it managed to finish the Qualifying in 8th position.
