2016.08.06

CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R Takes Pole Position!

Round5 Fuji Speedway : Qualifying GT500 Review

Official qualifying for the FUJI GT 300km RACE, Round 5 of the 2016 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series was held at Fuji Speedway (Shizuoka Pref.) on the afternoon of August 6. In the GT500 class, Joao Paulo Lima de Oliveira in the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R won his second consecutive pole position at Fuji Speedway. In the GT300 class, Takashi Kobayashi won the No. 55 ARTA BMW M6 GT3 team its third consecutive class pole at Fuji.

 

Due to an appearance of the Red Flag in the GT300 Q1 session, the GT500 class Q1 started six minutes late at 2:51 in the afternoon. With the air temperature at 33 degrees Celsius and the track surface temperature at 48 C., the time attacks had to be run in hot, mid-summer conditions.
As with all the rounds, the teams remained in the pit lane after the course was opened for the Q1 session, waiting for the right timing to take to the track. After the point where nine and a half minutes remained in the session, it was the No. 24 Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R (Daiki Sasaki) winner of the last round at SUGO that was first to go out onto the track. Next out was the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN RC F (Yuji Kunimoto), another car competing on Yokohama tires, followed by the No. 64 Epson NSX CONCEPT-GT (Bertrand Baguette), No. 1 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda) and the No. 46 S Road CRAFTSPORTS GT-R (Katsumasa Chiyo).
The teams on Bridgestone tires began to make their moves with about 7 minutes and 30 seconds remaining in the period. With this, all the cars were on the track and warming up their tires in preparation for their time attacks, and while the Lexus RC F were putting times near the top of the board in the early going, the Nissan GT-R NISMO GT500 and Honda NSX CONCEPT-GT cars began to deliver with faster time that moved the Lexus teams down in the order.

BY the time all the cars had finished their time attacks, the fastest time in Q1 belonged to the No. 46 S Road CRAFTSPORTS GT-R. With a time of 1’28.393, the team had managed to maintain the strength they showed in the morning’s official practice. Next, in 2nd position came the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Hironobu Yasuda), giving the Nissan GT-R NISMO GT500 a one-two finish, just as they had in the morning practice.
The third fastest in Q1 was the No. 17 KEIHIN NSX CONCEPT-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi), followed by the No. 15 Drago Modulo NSX CONCEPT-GT (Oliver Turvey ) and No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX CONCEPT-GT (Naoki Yamamoto) to give Honda NSX CONCEPT-GT cars 3rd to 5th position.

Meanwhile, the real surprise was the lacking performances of the Lexus RC F cars. The No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN RC F on Yokohama tires managed to finish Q1 in 7th position to move on to Q2, while the five Lexus cars on Bridgestone tires all failed to clear Q1.

 

 

After the GT300 class Q2, the GT500 Q2 started at 3:35. Thirty seconds after the start of the session, the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN RC F (Yuhi Sekiguchi) was the first to go out on the track to begin its warm-up laps. At this point, the air temperature was 32℃ and the track surface temperature stood at 47℃.
With eight minutes remaining in the session, the No. 24 Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R (Masataka Yanagida) went out to prepare for its time attacks, followed by the other Q2 qualifiers with seven minutes to go in the session, but it wasn’t until one minute before the checkers that that the fast times began to come in.
In the midst of it all, it was two Nissan GT-R NISMO GT500 cars that staged a close battle for the lead. The No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Joao Paulo Lima de Oliveira) first turned in a time of 1’28.458 and the No. 46 S Road CRAFTSPORTS GT-R (Satoshi Motoyama) followed with a 1’28.936.
On his next lap, Motoyama made his shot for pole position, improving his time to 1’28.934, but he couldn’t match the time of De Oliveira. With this result, the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R won the battle of the two Nissan GT-R NISMO GT500s to win pole position. The No. 46 S Road CRAFTSPORTS GT-R qualified 2nd.
Meanwhile, a truly surprising result came from the No. 1 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R. Carrying a weight handicap of 84 kg, Ronnie Quintarelli managed a time of 1’28.997 that seemed to defy the car’s heaviness. This gave him 3rd position and a sweep of the top three for the 3 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT500.

The best place among the Honda NSX CONCEPT-GT cars went to the No. 17 KEIHIN NSX CONCEPT-GT (Takashi Kogure) in 4th. This was followed by the No. 15 Drago Modulo NSX CONCEPT-GT (Hideki Mutoh) and the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX CONCEPT-GT (Takuya Izawa). In the end, the best place for the Lexus RC F cars was the 8th place of car No. 19.

 

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