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.
□Official Qualifying Weather: cloudy ｜ course: dry ｜ air temperature / track surface temperature at the start of GT300 Q1: 23℃／28℃, at the start of GT300 Q2: 24℃／27℃, at the end: 23℃／27℃.
Round 6 of the 2026 season is being held at Sportsland SUGO in Miyagi Prefecture. On this day at SUGO, rain fell during the morning’s official practice sessions, after which the skies changed to cloudy and the rain that had been feared during the qualifying never fell. The Official Qualifying that started at 2:30 in the afternoon was run in dry conditions, with the air temperature at 23℃ and the track surface temperature at 28℃ at the start.
The 10-minute GT300 class Group A Q1 started at 2:30 in the afternoon and was competed by 15 cars. The first to record a timed attack was Takuto Iguchi in the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT with a time of 1’17.325. However, it was the winner of last year’s SUGO race, Shunsuke Kohno in the No. 60 Syntium LMcorsa LC500 GT that far outran Iguchi’s time with a lap of 1’16.944, which became the top time in Q2. Finishing in 2nd position was car No. 61, while 3rd position went to Kazuto Kotaka in the No. 31 apr LC500h GT who recorded a time of 1′ 17.533 on the checkered flag lap.
Meanwhile, in Group A there were unexpected upsets as both Joao Paulo de Oliveira in the No. 56 REALIZE NISSAN MECHANIC CHALLENGE GT-R that stood as the leader in the Drivers’ Ranking and Yusuke Tomibayashi in the No. 9 PACIFIC Umamusume NAC BMW both failed to go beyond Q1 in Group A.
In the Group B Q1 session that followed there were 14 cars competing. Also a 10-minute session, it began at 2:48 in the afternoon. In a flying lap run after warming up his tires, Ryuichiro Tomita in the No. 11 GAINER TANAX Z recorded a time of 1’17.214. Also, Charlie Fagg in the No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3 closed in with a time of 1’17.249, but no one else was able to beat these times, leaving car No. 11 to advance to Q2 with the top time. Following in 2nd and 3rd positions respectively were car No. 777 and Takuro Shinohara in the No. 45 PONOS FERRARI 296 EVO.
After the running of the GT500 class Q2, the 10-minute GT300 Q2 started at 3:23 in the afternoon. Running here were the top nine cars from the two Q1 sessions, for a total of 18 cars, and most of the cars took to the track as soon as it was open.
Here, there was a scene where Ryota Horachi in the No. 25 HOPPY Schatz GR Supra GT who hit the guardrail coming out of the pit lane and came to a stop for a moment. However the damage to car No. 25 was slight and it was able to continue the session as it was.
Entering the closing stages of the session as the cars brought their times down one after another, it was Hiroki Yoshimoto in the No. 60 Syntium LMcorsa LC500 GT who emerged on top with a time of 1’16.964. After that, Hideki Yamauchi in car No. 61 and the winner of last year’s pole position at SUGO, Zak O’Sullivan in the No. 7 CARGUY Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO closed in but were unable to beat his time.
With this, pole position went to the No. 60 Syntium LMcorsa LC500 GT (Hiroki Yoshimoto / Shunsuke Kohno). Considering the fact that Yoshimoto had failed to win the top spot in last year’s SUGO Q2 by finishing just 0.019 sec behind car No. 7 to finish Q2 in 2nd position, there was a great sense of well-won revenge.
What’s more, this pole position was the first for the LM corsa since it began competing in the GT300 class. Also, surprizingly this was the first pole position for the veteran Yoshimoto who has won 10 races in SUPER GT.
Finishing in 2nd position came the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi / Hideki Yamauchi), while 3rd position went to the No. 7 CARGUY Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO (Zak O’Sullivan / Kiyoshi Umegaki), What’s more, the No. 52 Green Brave GR Supra GT (Hiroki Yoshida/ Seita Nonaka) finished 4th and the No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3 (Tomonobu Fujii / Charlie Fagg) took 5th position.
