2026 AUTOBACS SUPER GT Round 5 Race, the “SUZUKA GT 300km RACE” was held on August 23rd at Suzuka Circuit (1 lap 5,807m×52 laps). The air temperature reached 34℃ to make it a hot mid-summer race, and in the heated competition in the GT500 class between the HRC PRELUDE-GT cars, the No. 16 #16 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT (Tomoki Nojiri / Ren Sato) took an impressive come-from-behind win. What’s more, the HRC PRELUDE-GT cars swept the winners’ podium. In the GT300 class, the No. 9 PACIFIC UMA MUSUME NAC BMW (Yusuke Tomibayashi / Yuta Fujiwara) took a pole-to-finish win to give the drivers and the team a felicitous first win.
＜GT500＞ The Round 5 race at Suzuka took place on August 23rd in relentless heat with the air temperature reaching a hot 33 to 34℃ for the cars to compete in over the 52 laps of the 300km race. In the GT500 class, it was Yuto Nomura starting from pole position in the No. 17 Astemo HRC PRELUDE-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi / Yuto Nomura) who took a strong initial lead. Following him was Tomoki Nojiri who had started from 4th position in the No. 16 #16 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT (Tomoki Nojiri / Ren Sato) and moved up to 3rd position in the first lap, and then on the 3rd lap passed the No. 8 #8 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT (Kakunoshin Ohta / Hiroki Otsu) that had started from 2nd position on the grid to then move up into 2nd position. Keeping its momentum going from there, No. 16 continued to close in on the leading car No. 17. By the 8th lap of the race the gap between the two leaders was down to less than 1 sec., and before giving up the lead, Yuto Nomura in car No. 17 returned to the pit on the 18th lap and changed drivers. Running in 2nd position, car No. 16 returned to the pit on the 22nd lap. Although it was able to return to the track in front of car No. 17, the No. 17 driver Koudai Tsukakoshi was able to pass No. 16 and retake the lead by the time all of the cars had finished their pit stops on the 35th lap. After that, a tense battle continued between the two leaders, until the 37th lap when Koudai Tsukakoshi in car No. 17 got caught behind back-lappers and Ren Sato in car No. 16 was able to pass him and take the lead and gradually begin to build his lead over car No. 17. Then, as the leaders entered the last four laps of the race there was a big accident that occurred a GT300 class car, which caused the Safety Car to come out to control the race for the second time, and it was during this SC run that the race eventually ended. With this, Car No. 16 took its first win of the season. This gave Tomoki Nojiri a win that extended his career record for most individual wins to 11, while for Ren Sato it was his first win in the GT500 class. Following in 2nd and 3rd places respectively were car No. 17 and car No. 8, thus giving the Honda HRC PRELUDE-GT a sweep of the winners’ podium. Following in 4th and 5th places came the No. 23 MOTUL Niterra Z (Katsumasa Chiyo / Mitsunori Takaboshi) and the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Toshiki Oyu / Rikuto Kobayashi), thus giving the NISSAN Z NISMO GT500 and the TOYOTA GR Supra GT500 places in the top five as well.
＜GT300＞ In the GT300 class, Yuta Fujiwara starting from pole position in the No. 9 PACIFIC UMA MUSUME NAC BMW (Yusuke Tomibayashi / Yuta Fujiwara) took the lead at the start and began to build his margin of lead. Behind him came the No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3 (Tomonobu Fujii / Charlie Fagg) and the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi / Hideki Yamauchi), and they were followed by the No. 60 Syntium LMcorsa LC500 GT (Hiroki Yoshimoto / Shunsuke Kohno). However, after changing drivers to Yusuke Tomibayashi the pace of car No. 9 didn’t slow, and with that perfect race development the two drivers got their first win. Finishing in 2nd and 3rd places came the No. 7 CARGUY Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO (Zak O’Sullivan /Kiyoshi Umegaki) that had continued to advance through the field and the No. 18 UPGARAGE AMG GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi / Kotaro Shimbara).
◎Spectators August 23rd (Race day /clear skies) : 32,000 / Aug. 23rd （Qualifying Day / clear skies）：20,500.
■Winner Comments
No.16 #16 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT Tomoki Nojiri “We won! We had the best possible performance from the car and the tires. It ran as we drivers hoped it would, and we were able to pass the other cars aggressively as we wished. In the qualifying things had not gone well for Ren (Sato) which was disappointing, but (for me) I was able to recover from that and turn the car over to Ren with just one car in front of us. After that, After that, Ren also pushed hard, so I truly feel it was a magnificent victory.”
Ren Sato “It is our first win! I was confused about where I should park the winning car, because I am not used to winning (wry smile). For the qualifying they had prepared us a car that was capable of winning pole position, but because of a mistake of mine we couldn’t get it, so in the final race I ran with determination to make up for that, and Nojiri-san also passed two cars, so all I had to do was pass one more. This was really terrific”.
No.9 PACIFIC UMA MUSUME NAC BMW Yusuke Tomibayashi “We did it, we won! Thanks to everyone’s efforts we were able to run well in the qualifying (getting pole position). In the race some people thought we would have difficulty, but Yuta Fujiwara (who drove in the first half of the race) ran wonderfully like a veteran despite the fact that he is only 20 years old. Since we were starting from pole position we were determined to win, and since we had the help of student mechanics from the Nakanihon Automotive College working on our car, and there’s one student for whom this race will be his last, and he did a perfect job, so all we had to think about was managing the tires and driving fast. I want to express my thanks to chairman Jinno and everyone else.”
Yuta Fujiwara “Thanks to everyone we were able to get first place, so I am very happy. This first win makes me so overjoyed that I’m about to cry (tearful voice). I want to express my gratitude to the team, to BMW, and the people at Michelin Tires for maintaining the great performance to the very end of the race. Thank you so much.”
