2016.11.12

DENSO KOBELCO SARD RC F's Kovalainen Takes His First Pole Position!

Round3 Twin Ring Motegi : Qualifying Review

The official qualifying for Round 3 of the 2016 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, originally scheduled to be run at Autopolis circuit in May but cancelled due to the effects of the Kumamoto Earthquakes, was held at the Motegi Twin Ring (Tochigi Prefecture) on the morning of November 12 (Sat.). Running in difficult conditions on a wet track, the GT500 class pole position was won by the No. 39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD RC F driven by Heikki Kovalainen, for whom it was his first SUPER GT pole win. In the GT300 class, the class pole position went to the No. 11 GAINER TANAX AMG GT3 driven by Bjorn Wirdheim, bring the team their first pole win of the season.

 

 

For the GT300 class qualifying held just prior to the GT500 class session, there had still been a lot of rainwater on the track, and although many of the machine went onto the track with slick tires, they quickly changed to wet-use tire. In the GT500 class qualifying session as well, most of the teams chose to go out first on wet tires when the session started.
The first to record a timed lap of 1’48.221 was the series ranking leader, the No. 1 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda). The other teams made this their target time as they ran their timed laps. Two machines managed to beat the time of the No. 1 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R, namely the No. 24 Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R (Daiki Sasaki), No. 64 Epson NSX CONCEPT-GT (Bertrand Baguette). Both of these two cars recorded lap times in the 1’46 range as they improved on their best times.

 

 

However, as the track began to get dry areas primarily in the turns, the teams on Bridgestone tires began to improve their times with just under four minutes remaining in the session. Two machines among them, the No. 39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD RC F driven by Heikki Kovalainen and the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX CONCEPT-GT driven by Naoki Yamamoto, were turning in especially fast times.
Driving especially hard was Kovalainen, who managed to bring the fastest lap down suddenly into the 1’45 range, and with less than a minute remaining before the checkered flag that would end the session, he recorded a time of 1’45.885. Yamamoto also improved his time to move up into the 2nd slot on the time board at one point before being knocked down into 3rd position by Sasaki in the No. 24 Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R with a time of 1’45.950.
When the session had ended, no one had been able to beat the best time of the No. 39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD RC F, thus giving the former F1 driver Kovalainen his first pole position in SUPER GT competition. Finishing in 2nd position was the No. 24 Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R, while 3rd position went to the No. 36 au TOM'S RC F driven by Nick Cassidy who managed to improve his time on the checkered flag lap.

Afterwards, a happily smiling Kovalainen commented about his first SUPER GT pole position win: “The conditions were difficult, but I thought it would be important to keep running. I think we got a good start to the weekend.”

 

 

 

Most of the teams started the GT300 qualifying session on wet-condition tires. But, some teams, including the No. 3 B-MAX NDDP GT-R (Kazuki Hoshino) and the No. 4 GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG (Tatsuya Kataoka) adopted a strategy of taking a chance on slick tires from the beginning and waiting a while before going out onto the track.
The drivers who went out on the track from the beginning with wet-use tires were able to improve their lap times steadily. Then with nine minutes remaining in the session, the No. 11 GAINER TANAX AMG GT3 (Bjorn Wirdheim) brought the best time down to a 1’56.879. On the other hand, the teams that had taken a chance on slick tires realized that the track wasn’t going to dry out as they had expected and were forced to change their tactics. Cars No. 3 and No. 4 returned to the pit with six minutes remaining in the session and changed to wet tires, and then returned to the track to start their tire warm-ups all over again.
At this point in the session the fastest time on the board was that of car No. 11, with the No. 55 ARTA BMW M6 GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi) in 2nd position with a time of 1’57.417, and the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi in 3rd position with a time of 1’57.900. Soon, however, the No. 31 TOYOTA PRIUS apr GT (Koki Saga) recorded a time of 1’57.731 to move into 3rd position on the board.

 

 

Slightly earlier, a few cars had returned to the pit not to change from slick to wet tires, but from wet to new wet tires. Using this tactic to improve his times with three minutes remaining in the session was Wirdheim in the No. 11 GAINER TANAX AMG GT3. He succeeded in breaking the 1’55 barrier with a time of 1’54.932. This put him ahead of the car in 2nd position by a whopping margin of nearly 2.5 seconds. Just after that, the No. 25 VivaC 86 MC (Takeshi Tsuchiya) recorded a time of 1’57.337 and the No. 0 GAINER TANAX GT-R (Andre Couto) brought its time down to 1’57.490.
Toward the end of the session, things were getting difficult for the cars on wet-sue tires and some of them deliberately began running on the wetter parts of the track. However, the condition of the track itself was getting better and this was enabling cars to run better times one after another. With one minute remaining in the session, car No. 1 61 recorded a time of 1’56.369 to move into 2nd position on the board. But, the No. 21 Hitotsuyama Audi R8 LMS (Richard Lyons) soon bettered this with a time of 1’56.073 before bringing that down again to 1’55.522 on its final timed lap to keep 2nd position. Meanwhile, car No. 61 brought its time down to 1’56.137, leaving it just short of 2nd but still able to finish in 3rd position.

The checkered flag ended the session at this point, with the No. 11 GAINER TANAX AMG GT3 taking its first pole position of the season. These results gave the top three grid positions to cars on Dunlop tires. The current ranking leader, car No. 25, had to settle for 7th position on the grid, while the 2nd-place team in the ranking, car No. 3, only managed to finish in 21st position, and the 3rd-place team in the ranking, car No. 55, was also left in a difficult position with 9th spot on the grid for the race.

 

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