The Motegi GT 250km Race, Round 8 (final round) of the 2014 AUTOBACS SUPER GT was held at the Twin Ring Motegi on November 16. In the GT500 class race, the pole-starting No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R driven by Tsugio Matsuda and Ronnie Quintarelli scored its second win of the season in a runaway victory and thus clinched the Drivers Championship title as well. In the GT300 class, the race was won by the No. 11 GAINER DIXCEL SLS driven by Katsuyuki Hiranaka and Bjorn Wirdheim. The GT300 class Drivers Championship title went to the No. 4 GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU Z4 drivers Nobuteru Taniguchi and Tatsuya Kataoka by fighting to the end to finish 3rd.
Under clear autumn skies on November 16th (Sun.) and relatively warm conditions with an air temperature of 16° C. and a track surface temperature at 23°, a parade lap got underway at 1:00 in the afternoon led by a motorcycle squad of the Tochigi Prefectural Police. After one parade lap, the pace car assumed the lead to begin the race’s formation lap. With an excited crowd of 32,000 looking on, the formation lap ended and all the cars roared into action at the signal with accelerators to the floor for the start of the 53-lap race. The start saw the pole-position No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Ronnie Quintarelli) get a good start to take the lead. Following Quintarelli in second position was No. 46 S Road MOLA GT-R (Masataka Yanagida) and in third the No.18 Weider Modulo NSX CONCEPT-GT (Naoki Yamamoto). This meant that three machines running on Michelin tires were in the lead and pulling away from the pack in the early going. Behind them, the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Joao Paulo Lima De Oliveira) tried to pass the No. 36 PETRONAS TOM’S RC F (James Rossiter) by taking the in side on the S-curve of the opening lap, but this move resulted in a collision between the two machines. This sent De Oliveira off the track and resulted in a big loss in position. As for Rossiter, his machine did a clockwise half-spin that cause damage to the right front that would cause him to fall off pace somewhat. What’s more, after starting the race from 6th position, the No. 32 Epson NSX CONCEPT-GT driven by Bertrand Baguette ran off the track at the third turn. This dropped No. 32 all the way back to the tail of the pack. Among the leaders, Quintarelli was pushing the pace hard from the early going. From around the fifth lap he was opening up a considerable lead over the rest. Meanwhile, a close battle was raging between Yanagida in 2nd place and Yamamoto in 3rd. Behind them there was a big gap to Rossiter in the PETRONAS TOM’S RC F, who had managed to maintain 4th position after the collision with No. 12. But, he was being chased at close quarters by No. 17 KEIHIN NSX CONCEPR-GT (Toshihiro Kaneishi), the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN RC F (Yuhi Sekiguchi), the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX CONCEPT-GT (Takashi Kogure), the No. 6 ENEOS SUSTINA RC F (Yuji Kunimoto) and the No. 37 KeePer TOM’S RC F (Andrea Caldarelli), having staged a magnificent dash to recover from last position. Rossiter was struggling bravely to hold off the pursuers behind him, until he was finally passed by Kaneishi on the eighth lap. But just after that, Kaneishi would run off the track at the second corner and then do a slow circuit of the course before returning to the pit for repairs. Meanwhile, Rossiter was passed next by Caldarelli, who had just succeeded in overtaking Sekiguchi. Rossiter was then passed by Sekiguchi as well coming out of the V-corner, which dropped him back to 6th position. Around this time, a drive-trough penalty was issued against De Oliveira for his collision with Rossiter.
The hard-charging Caldarelli made his team’s routine pit stop at the end of the 20th lap, followed by Rossiter’s return to the pit on the 21st lap. Both cars were refueled, had their tires changed and changed drivers for the second stint. Returning to the pit at the end of lap 22 for their routine stops were the 2nd-place runner Yanagida and 3rd-place Yamamoto. But here, Yanagida was given a 10-second penalty stop for having passed a machine in a yellow flag zone, which set the team back in position. Yamamoto had timed his pit stop in hopes of using this opportunity to move into 2nd place, but when his teammate Takuya Izawa was ready to return to the track, his engine stalled. This caused a bit of delay in leaving the pit, during which time Daisuke Ito, now at the wheel of KeePer TOM’S RC F, to move ahead into 2nd place. After this, in an irregular strategy aimed at securing a podium finish, the No. 24 D’station ADVAN GT-R (Daiki Sasaki) had returned for the routine pit stop at the end of lap 28. With a driver change, refueling and a change of only the rear tires, Krumm succeeded in improving the team’s position when he returned to the race. Seeing this, Sekiguchi in the WedsSport ADVAN RC F, who had stretched out his stint to the 33rd lap returned to the pit with the intention of gaining time with a no-tire-change strategy. His teammate Wakisaka thus succeeded in returning to the track in 2nd place. Quintarelli in the MOTUL AUTECH GT-R had succeeded in building up a big lead in the first half of the race. When it came time to make the routine pit stop, he had a safe margin of lead with nearly 40 seconds. Then, after extending his stint sufficiently, he brought the car in for the routine stop at the end of the 30th lap. The driver change was made, the car refueled and all the tires change. Still the lead had been large enough to return to the race in the lead. The second stint was now the responsibility of Tsugio Matsuda, who proceeded to build the lead again over the rivals in pursuit. Behind Matsuda, Ito managed to pass Wakisaka in the first turn of lap 38. Now in 2nd place, Ito naturally hoped to close the gap on the leader, but Matsuda’s pace was too fast. In the latter stages of the race, the battle for 3rd place became the focus of attention for the fans. Having foregone a tire change to gain time, Wakasaka was now vulnerable to the pursuing Krumm and Izawa. Krumm tried time and again to pass Wakisaka and finally attempted pulling even with him on the in side in the first and second turns of the 45th lap. But, Wakisaka wouldn’t give an inch, and the two machines went on into the third turn side-by-side. In the third turn Wakisaka managed to get the inside line and defend his position again. Seeing this, it was now Izawa’s turn to try to get on the inside of Krumm. He put the pressure on Krumm until he was finally able to pass him on the second turn of lap 46 and move into 4th place. Then, on the hairpin of the 47th lap, Izawa was able to catch and pass Wakisaka, who was beginning to lose braking capacity. This put Izawa on course for a podium finish. For the leading MOTUL AUTECH GT-R it had been a masterful race worthy of champions. They finished the race with a lead of 51.744 sec. over 2nd place to take their second win of the season and grad the title. This gave the NISMO team its first Drivers Championship title in six years, since 2008. This was Quintarelli’s third title and for a tearfully happy Matsuda it is his first title. As a result of this win, the NISMO team also claimed the Team Championship, by climbing to a one-point lead in the ranking over the LEXUS TEAM KeePer TOM’S.
