2015.09.20

Perfect racing brings Vivac 86 MC team its first GT300 win

Round6 SUGO : Race GT300

The SUGO GT 300km RACE, Round 6 of the 2015 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, was held at Sportsland SUGO in Murata Town, Miyagi Prefecture on September 20 in the midst of Japan's 5-day "Silver Week" (Week of the Elderly) extended weekend holiday. With blue skies and beautiful early autumn weather perfect for watching the racing, the No.100 RAYBRIG NSX CONCEPT-GT driven by Naoki Yamamoto and Takuya Izawa succeeded in bringing the Honda NSX CONCEPT-GT tits first win of the 2015 season. In the GT300 race, the No.25 Vivac 86 MC driven by Takeshi Tsuchiya and Takamitsu Matsui won a joyous first GT victory, which was also the first victory for a car using the new GT300 mother chassis put in use on a full scale from this season.

 

  

 

 

Action began at the SUGO circuit at 2:00, with five members of the Miyagi Prefectural motorcycle police squad and one patrol car leading the GT cars around the track in a traffic safety parade. Unfortunately for the No. 5 MACH SYAKEN with Iracon 86c-west that had crashed in Saturday's free practice, it was forced to withdraw from this day's race. On the other hand, the No. 33 Excellence Porsche that had suffered electronics trouble in the free practice and had been unable to participate in the Saturday qualifying was fortunate to have replacement parts arrive and installed in time to enable it to start the race from the tail end of the grid. Meanwhile, the No. 30 NetMove GT-R machine couldn't get started at the beginning of the parade and had to be taken back to the pit to start the race from there.
The race had a clean start and came through the first lap with the No. 55 ARTA CR-Z GT (Shinichi Takagi) in the lead, followed by the No. 25 Vivac 86 MC (Takamitsu Matsui), No. 31 TOYOTA PRIUS apr GT (Koki Saga), No. 18 UPGARAGE BANDOH 86 (Yuhki Nakayama) and the No. 88 MANEPA LAMBORGHINI GT3 (Kimiya Sato). However, the pace of Matsui in the No. 25 car was clearly faster than that of the lead car No. 55.
On the first corner of the seventh lap of the race, the GT300 rookie Matsui easily passed the veteran Takagi in the inside to move into the lead. With the No. 55 car unable to pick up the pace, No. 31 and the cars behind it passed No. 55 one after another, losing ground steadily. Matsui in car No. 25 drove on steadily in the lead, seemingly untroubled by the pressure now coming from car No. 31 on his tail in 2nd place. In fact, Matsui was now actually extending his lead over No. 31.
A crash between two GT500 class cars brought out the Safety Car, however, and that quickly eliminated any lead Matsui had managed to build up. Furthermore, when the pit lane was opened just before the Safety Car left the track, the leaders all took advantage of this timing to make their routine pit stops. Despite the sudden confusion in the pit area the mechanics of car No. 25's Vivac Team TSUCHIYA performed the pit work smoothly and were able to keep the effective lead as Takeshi Tsuchiya took the wheel for the second stint of the race. Once back in the race, the No. 25 Vivac 86 MC was off and running at a fast pace, pushing hard to build a lead.

 

 

By not making its pit stop along with the others, the No. 22 GREENTEC SLS AMG GT3 (Hisashi Wada) led the race for a while, but once it too made its pit stop on the 48th lap, No. 25 was back in the lead. At this point on the 48th lap of the race, Tsuchiya in car No. 25 had a big 22-sec. lead over the No. 88 MANEPA LAMBORGHINI GT3 (Manabu Orido) back in 2nd place. While No. 25 ran away in front, the No. 31 TOYOTA PRIUS apr GT (Nakayama Yuichi) closed in on car No. 88 and succeeded in overtaking it. From there, Nakayama tried to pick up the pace and give chase to car No. 25, but its veteran driver Tsuchiya skillfully maintained a safe margin of lead, as if he were driving looking backwards. Running on unchallenged, the No. 25 Vivac 86 MC took its first-ever GT victory in very convincing style. For Tsuchiya, it was his first win since 1999, and for Matsui, a rookie in SUPER GT this year, it was a felicitous first victory. This race also represented the first victory for a machine using the GT300 mother chassis developed by GTA and used for the first time in spot entries last season before beginning full-scale use this year.
Finishing the race in 2nd lace came the No. 31 TOYOTA apr PRIUS GT. Coming on in the latter stages of the race to pass the No. 88 car and finished the race in 3rd place was the No. 11 GAINER TANAX SLS (Bjorn Wirdheim>Katsuyuki Hiranaka). Having started the race in 11th place on the grid, this was a major achievement for car No. 11.
Meanwhile, the Drivers point leader coming into the race, Andre Couto had managed as starting driver of the No. 10 GAINER TANAX GT-R (Couto/Ryuichiro Tomita), to move up doggedly from an 8th-position start to finish in 6th place. The precious five points this 6th place finish, earned despite a full load of 100 kg of handicap weights, increased Couto's lead in the standings to 25 points over the Saga/Nakayama pair of car No. 31 now ranked second.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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