The official qualifying for the “SUGO GT 300km RACE,” Round 6 of the 2025 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, was held at Sportsland SUGO (one lap 3,586 m) in Miyagi Prefecture on September 20th. The rain that had been feared did not fall, so the qualifying was run on a dry track. In the GT500 class, Sato in the No. 16 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #16 （Hiroki Otsu/Ren Sato）took a second consecutive pole position following the one at Round 5, while setting a new course record. In the GT300 class, Kobayashi in the winning car of the precious round, the No. 7 CARGUY FERRARI 296 GT3 （Zak O’Sulliva/Rikuto Kobayashi） took the first pole position for himself and for the team. These two teams will start from the front row of their respective class grips in tomorrow’s race on September 21st.
□Official qualifying Weather: cloudy | Track: dry | Air temperature/Track temperature GT300 Q1 at the start: 21℃/25℃, GT300 Q2 at the start: 21℃/25℃, at the finish 21℃/26℃.
The qualifying day, September 20th (Sat.), brought rain in the early morning, but it had stopped before the morning’s official practice. At that point there was still a prediction of rain for the afternoon, but fortunately it never started raining again, making for dry conditions for the qualifying.
The official qualifying started at 2:05 in the afternoon under cloudy skies. The air temperature stood at 21℃ and the track temperature at 25℃. In the GT300 class, the first to run were the 14 cars of the Q1 Group A. In this 10-minute session, the cars would compete to move on to Q2. The first to post a time of 1’17.873 was the No. 56 REALIZE NISSAN MECHANIC CHALLENGE GT-R (Joao Paulo de Oliveira). This became the target time for the other cars as they began their time attacks.
Then the winner of Round 5 at SUZUKA, the No. 7 CARGUY Ferrari 296 GT3 (Zak O’Sullivan) beat that with a time of 1’17.596. With this time it qualified on to Q2. The 2nd position went to car No. 56, while in 3rd position with a time of 1’17.999 stood the No. 2 HYPER WATER INGING GR86 GT (Hibiki Taira). As for the No. 5 MACHSYAKEN AIR BUSTER MC86 MACH GO (Iori Kimura) that had taken a podium finish in 3rd place in the previous round at SUZUKA, it could only manage to finish now in 11th position, which meant it could not qualify on to Q2.
Next to run was the Q1 Group B, and among its cars was the No. 20 SHADE RACING GR86 GT that had suffered machine trouble in the morning’s the official practice, but unfortunately the attempts to repair the trouble in time for Q1 failed. Thus, Group B was reduced to a competition among the remaining 13 cars.
Among these, the No. 60 Syntium LMcorsa LC500 GT (Shunsuke Kohno) that had finished Round 5 at SUZUKA in 3rd position, only to be disqualified for a violation found in the scrutineering after the race, was able to perform well in this session. It recorded times of 1’17.569 and 1’17.363 in successive laps to take the top spot in Group B and qualify on to Q2. The 2nd position went to the No. 87 METALIVE S Lamborghini GT3 (Kosuke Matsuura) with a time of 1’17.887. Following in 3rd position came the No. 4 GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG (Nobuteru Taniguchi), having just finished the SUZUKA 1000km race the previous week.
Meanwhile, the No. 18 UPGARAGE AMG GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi) that had won Round 3 at Sepang, and the car No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi) that had been the pole sitter in the previous round at Suzuka both failed to perform well here, finishing in 11th and 12th positions respectively, and thus failing to qualify on to Q2.
After the GT500 class Q1 session, the top nine finishers each in Group A and Group B, for a total of 18 cars, competed in Q2, starting from 2:58 in the afternoon. Eventually, the rain that all had feared never fell, making for dry track conditions when the 18 cars took to the track.
To begin with, it was No. 60 (Hiroki Yoshimoto) that ran a fast time close to the course record (1’16.834) with a lap of 1’16.987 to take the top position in Group B. With this as a target time, the other cars continued their time attacks, but it seemed as if none were going to beat it to take pole position.
However, with one minute remaining in the session, Rikuto Kobayashi in car No. 7 drove an amazing lap. As a native of Yamagata Prefecture, just a stone’s throw away from SUGO, Kobayashi was spurred on by the cheers many fans to run a fast lap of 1’16.968, just beating the time of No. 60 by a mere 0.019 sec. As a result, he won a first pole position both for himself and for the No. 7 CARGUY FERRARI 296 GT3 (Zak O’Sullivan/Rikuto Kobayashi) team.
Finishing in 2nd position in the qualifying was the No. 60 Syntium LMcorsa LC500 GT (Hiroki Yoshimoto/Shunsuke Kohno), from which they will seek to make up for the frustrating result of the previous round. Finishing in 3rd position and was the defending champion team, the No. 0 VENTENY Lamborghini GT3 (Takashi Kogure/Yuya Motojima), from where they will attempt to take their elusive first win of the season. Following them are two more strong teams, the No. 4 GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG (Nobuteru Taniguchi/Tatsuya Kataoka) and the No. 2 HYPER WATER INGING GR86 GT (Yuui Tsutsumi/Hibiki Taira) to ensure that there will be a fierce battle for the win in the final race.
