The FUJI GT SPRINT RACE, Round 4 of the 2025 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series took place on August 2nd at Fuji Speedway (one lap 4,563 m x 35 laps) in Shizuoka Prefecture. Although there were no real problems as feared due to the Typhoon No. 9 passing close, there were some sprinkles of rain near the end of the race, but the race successfully reached its goal. In the GT500 class, Sho Tsuboi in the No. 1 au TOM’S GR Supra who had finished 2nd in the qualifying, took the lead in the early going and appeared to be on the way to a perfect win. In the GT300 class, Charlie Fagg in the No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3 came up from 4th position on the starting grid to take a come-from-behind win. Tomorrow, August 3rd (Sun.) will see the holding of Race 2.
□Official qualifying Weather：clear | Track：dry | Air temperature/Track temperature at the start of the GT500 Official Qualifying: 34℃/59℃, at the finish of the GT500 qualifying: 34℃/59℃.
The GT500 class Official Qualifying started at 12:10 in the afternoon. With both the air and track temperatures very high it made for difficult running conditions. Nonetheless, the order continued to change repeatedly until the very end of the qualifying as the fierce competition went on and on.
With the 10-minute GT500 class qualifying being run as the usual Q1 sessions, none of the cars took to the track in the first three minutes of the session. With seven minutes remaining in the session, some of the cars began to leave the pit to begin their runs, bettering their time lap by lap. The last to remain in its garage was the No. 1 au TOM’S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi), and at the time it began to run there were 5 min. 30 sec. remaining in the session. That marked the start of the serious time attacks.
The No. 64 Modulo CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Takuya Izawa) was first to record a time of 1’29.623 on its 3rd lap. This was bettered by No. 17 Astemo CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Syun Koide) on its 4th lap with a lap of 1’29.046.
However, soon there came other cars with times in the 1’28 sec. range on the 4th lap, including the No. 24 REALIZE CORPORATION ADVAN Z (Tsugio Matsuda) with a time of 1’28.711, the No. 100 STANLEY CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Tadasuke Makino) with a 1’28.763, and No. 12 TRS IMPUL with SDG Z (Bertrand Baguette) with a lap of 1’28.870. Finally, it was Tsuboi in car No. 1 who took the top spot with a time of 1’28.220 in the checkered flag lap.
While there were still some cars making attacks, it looked as if the pole position would go to Tsuboi in car No. 1. But it was car No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra (Sena Sakaguchi) that had run consecutive flying laps on its 4th and 5th laps that came through with a time of 1’28.167 on the final lap with the checkered flag waving to beat out car No. 1.
With this, Sena Sakaguchi in the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra took his second consecutive pole position following the one in Round 3 at Sepang. Finishing the qualifying in 2nd position was the No. 1 au TOM’S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi). The 3rd position went to the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Toshiki Oyu) that had recorded a time of 1’28.456 on the 5th lap. Thus, as in the Official Practice, the TOYOTA GR Supra GT500 swept the top three positions.
The 4th position in the qualifying went to the No. 3 Niterra MOTUL Z (Daiki Sasaki), while the fastest finisher among the Honda CIVIC TYPE R-GT cars was the No. 100 STANLEY CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Tadasuke Makino) in 7th position.
Saturday’s Race 1 that began at 3:15 in the afternoon was run as a joint race with the two classes running together.
