Round 6 Sportsland SUGO : Qualifying GT500

　The Qualifying sessions for the 2026 AUTOBACS SUPER GT Round 6, the “SUGO GT 300km RACE” took place on September 19th at Sportsland SUGO (one lap 3,586 m). As with last year, there were worries about rain, and in spite of conditions with low air temperature and track surface temperature, The conditions were dry throughout the qualifying. In the GT500 class, Riki Okusain the No. 64 Modulo HRC PRELUDE-GT (Riki Okusa / Igor Omura Fraga) broke the course record to take his second career pole position. In the GT300 class the veteran Hiroki Yoshimoto in the No. 60 Syntium LMcorsa LC500 GT (Hiroki Yoshimoto / Shunsuke Kohno) surprizingly took his first pole position in the 23rd year of his SUPER GT career that has seen him win ten races in all.

　The GT500 class 10-minute Qualifying Q1 session started at 3:03 in the afternoon. The No. 24 REALIZE CORPORATION Z (Teppei Natori / Atsushi Miyake) that had run off the track in the official practice sessions and suffered damage to its front end was able to run again thanks to the team’s desparate work. They succeeded in getting Natori into the start of Q1.

　At this point, due in part to the unstable weather conditions, the air temperature and the track surface temperature remained low for this time in the year, which led all of the cars to take to the track early. With 6 minutes and 30 sec. remaining in the session, all of the cars had left the pits to begin warming up their tires.

　The first to record a fast time of 1’09.589 sec. was Otsu in the No. 8 #8 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT (Kakunoshin Ohta / Hiroki Otsu). This was followed by Nojiri in the No. 16 #16 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT (Tomoki Nojiri / Ren Sato) with a time of 1’09.650.

　However, the top time in the official practice sessions was recorded by Fraga, who was assigned to run in Q1 for the No. 64 Modulo HRC PRELUDE-GT (Riki Okusa / Igor Omura Fraga) and showed his speed again here. He took the lead with a fast time of 1’09.253. Tsukakoshi in the No. 17 Astemo HRC PRELUDE-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi / Yuto Nomura) also ran a time of 1’09.617 to follow car No. 8 in third position, while car No. 16 came in 4th. What’s more, Yamamoto in the No. 100 STANLEY HRC PRELUDE-GT (Naoki Yamamoto / Tadasuke Makino) followed in 5th position with a time of 1’09.805. When all was over, the top five positions in Q1 were swept by the five Honda HRC PRELUDE-GT cars.

　Following in 6th position came the No. 14 ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra (Nirei Fukuzumi / Kazuya Oshima), with the No. 39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD GR Supra (Yuhi Sekiguchi / Sacha Fenestraz) in 7th position, the No. 19 WedsSport BANDOH GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto / Sena Sakaguchi) in 8th position, the No. 12 TRS IMPUL with SDG Z (Kazuki Hiramine / Bertrand Baguette) in 9th position and the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Toshiki Oyu / Rikuto Kobayashi) in 10th position, meaning that all ten cars succeeded in moving on to Q2.

　Meanwhile, the car No. 24 that had crashed in the official practice finished Q1 in 11th position and thus failed to advance to Q2. What’s more, it was found that the thickness of its skid block did not meet the regulation, which caused its qualifying times to be disqualified.

　Also, the driver pair of the No. 36 au TOM’S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi / Kenta Yamashita) who stood at the top of the drivers standing failed to progress beyond Q1, as it had in Round 5, making for another difficult round.

　The Qualifying Q2 started at 3:41 in the afternoon. This was also a 10-minute session. The first to take to the track was car No. 19, after which the other cars left their pits one after another. With 7 minutes remaining in the session all 10 cars were running out on the track and warming up their tires thoroughly in preparation to compete for pole position. And with less than two minutes remaining in the session, all the cars were making their serious time attacks.

　Here, the first to make its final time attack was the car No. 64 that had recorded the top time in both the official practice and in Q1. Concerned about the risk of rain or a Red Flag, Okusa had chosen to make an early attack, and after warming up his tires on his first lap on the track and the two following laps, he recorded a time of 1’09.050 on his 4th lap. This successfully broke the course record of 1′ 09.122 that Ren Sato (No. 16 #16 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT) had set in the Qualifying Q2 the year before for a new course record.

　Following this, Sakaguchi in car No. 19 recorded a time of 1’09.437 after three laps of warm-up. Meanwhile, Sato in car No. 16, who had set the course record the year before could only manage a time of 1’09.828 this time, while also, Makino in car No. 100 fell short with a time of 1’09.613. As for Nomura in car No. 17 who had won pole position at the previous round, he made an attack just before the checkered flag was shown and recorded a time of 1’09.368. But this was not enough to break No. 64’s record.

　With these results, the only GT500 class car running on DUNLOP tires, the No. 64 Modulo HRC PRELUDE-GT (Riki Okusa / Igor Omura Fraga) won this year’s pole position. Following in 2nd position came the No. 17 Astemo HRC PRELUDE-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi / Yuto Nomura), thus giving the Honda HRC PRELUDE-GT car the two positions on the front row of the starting grid.

　Meanwhile, the No. 19 WedsSport BANDOH GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto / Sena Sakaguchi) managed to take third position and prevent the Honda HRC PRELUDE-GT cars from scoring their third sweep of the top three positions this season.

　Finishing in 4th position came the No. 100 STANLEY HRC PRELUDE-GT (Naoki Yamamoto / Tadasuke Makino), while 5th position went to the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Toshiki Oyu / Rikuto Kobayashi). Also, car No. 12 TRS IMPUL with SDG Z (Kazuki Hiramine / Bertrand Baguette) became the only Nissan Z NISMO GT500 car to progress to Q2, where it recorded a time of 1’10.285 in 9th position.