Round 4 FUJI SPEEDWAY : Qualifying GT500

　The Official Qualifying for the 2026 AUTOBACS SUPER GT Rd. 4 “FUJI GT 300km RACE” took place on August 1st at Fuji Speedway in Shizuoka Prefecture (1 lap 4,563 m). The Air temperature rose to 33℃ in mid-summer weather, but this didn’t stop crowds of fans from coming to the track to see their first SUPER GT round in some time. The qualifying proceeded with no serious trouble, which made for intense action in the sessions. In the GT500 class, the Honda HRC PRELUDE-GT cars performed outstandingly in Q1 and Q2, with the pole position going to Ohta in the No. 8 #8 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT (Kakunoshin Ohta/Hiroki Otsu). In the GT300 class, Kawabata in the No. 45 PONOS FERRARI 296 EVO (Takuro Shinohara/Shintaro Kawabata), who had just joined the team from this season ran strongly in Q2 with no signs of any handicap and took 1st position in the class qualifying. These two teams will start tomorrow’s Race on August 2nd at the front of their respective starting grids.

　For the GT500 class Qualifying Q1, the course opened at 2：53 in the afternoon. The running time was 10 min. Compared to the time of the afternoon Official Practice clouds appeared in the sky overhead and brought down the air temperature and the track temperature to some degree. The air temperature stood at 33℃, and at the time of the start there was a sprinkling of rain in sector 3 of the track (the end of the course), but it would soon stop falling, thus causing no disturbance in the running. Although the air temperature remained high, the teams took time to warm up their tires.

　First of all, it was Okusa in the No. 64 Modulo HRC PRELUDE-GT (Riki Okusa/Igor Omura Fraga) who recorded a lap time of 1’27.909, and then Otsu in the No. 8 #8 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT (Kakunoshin Ohta/Hiroki Otsu) beat that with a time of 1’27.780. However immediately after that Yamamoto in the No. 100 STANLEY HRC PRELUDE-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino) ran a faster time of 1’27.447. Falling just short of that came Sasahara in the No. 37 Deloitte TOM’S GR Supra (Ukyo Sasahara/Giuliano Alesi) with a time of 1’27.764.

　Then, just before the finish, the rookie Yuto Nomura in the No. 17 Astemo HRC PRELUDE-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Yuto Nomura) ran the top time of 1’27.420. As a result, beginning with the top standing No. 17, and followed by No. 100, No. 8, No. 37, No. 64, No. 23, No. 14, No. 16, No. 12 and No. 38 all proceeded on to Q2. And all five of the Honda HRC PRELUDE-GT cars succeeded in moving on to Q2.

　Meanwhile, the series point leader, Tsuboi in the No. 36 au TOM’S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi/Kenta Yamashita), pushed hard despite carrying a load of 80 kg of Success Weight but was only able to record a best time of 1’28.335. Although it managed to come within 0.189 sec. of the car in 10th position, he could only finish in 11th position, meaning that his race ended with Q1.

　The 10-minute Qualifying Q2 session began at 3:31 in the afternoon. With some sunshine returning, and with the air temperature and the track temperature rising the session proceeded. Here, it was once again the HRC PRELUDE-GT that continued to show its speed.

　First of all, it was Fraga in the No. 64 Modulo HRC PRELUDE-GT who recorded a time of 1’27.944. This was then beaten by Sato in the No. 16 #16 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT (Tomoki Nojiri/Ren Sato) with a time of 1’27.701, but soon after this Oyu in the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Toshiki Oyu/Rikuto Kobayashi) came through to record the top time of 1’27.605.

　However it was then Makino in the No. 100 STANLEY HRC PRELUDE-GTwho came close to breaking into the 1’26 sec. range with a time of 1’27.078. Just as the checkered flag was about to be waved, Ohta in the No. 8 #8 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT ran the only time in the 1’26 range of the day to record a top time of 1’26.776. What’s more, Tsukakoshi in the No. 17 Astemo HRC PRELUDE-GT who had recorded the top time in Q1, finally at the very end recorded a time of 1’27.325 to take 3rd position.

　With these results, not only did car No. 8 take the pole position but also 2nd position in the Qualifying went to car No. 100, and in 3rd position came car No. 17, thus giving the HRC PRELUDE-GT a sweep of the top three positions in the Qualifying. Just as in the past when Ohta took the first pole position (*) with what at the time was the new Honda CIVIC TYPE R-GT in May of 2024 at Round 2 at FUJI, this time he took the first pole position for the new Honda HRC PRELUDE-GT.

(*) At the time it was the pole position decided by the combined times of the two drivers in Q1 and Q2, namely Kakunoshin Oha (1st position in Q1) and Koudai Tsukakoshi (3rd position in Q2)

　In the Qualifying, the car No. 38 that followed the car that finished in the 4th position became the fastest finisher among the TOYOTA GR Supra GT500 cars. And among the Nissan Z NISMO GT500 cars the fastest finisher was the No. 23 MOTUL Niterra Z (Katsumasa Chiyo/Mitsunori Takaboshi) in the 8th position. It is from these positions that the cars will compete in the 300km Race.