2016.11.12

GT300 class winner for the first time is the Hitotsuyama Audi R8 LMS!

Round3 Twin Ring Motegi : Race GT300 Review

On the afternoon of November 12, the 2016 AUTOBACS SUPER GT Round 3 “MOTEGI GT 250km RACE” was held at the Motegi Twin Ring in Tochigi Prefecture. In the GT500 class Round 3 race, the Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R (Daiki Sasaki/Masataka Yanagida) came from 2nd position on the starting grid to take its second win of the season. In the GT300 class, the No. 21 Hitotsuyama Audi R8 LMS (Richard Lyons/Tomonobu Fujii) also came from 2nd position on the starting grid to take the team’s first win in SUPER GT competition.

 

 

 

In the early going, the pole-starting No. 11 GAINER TANAX AMG GT3 (Bjorn Wirdheim) began to pull away from the 2nd grid-starting No. 21 Hitotsuyama Audi R8 LMS (Richard Lyons). After this, the No. 31 TOYOTA PRIUS apr GT (Koki Saga) moved up into 3rd position from it 4th-grid start and the No. 25 VivaC 86 MC (Takeshi Tsuchiya) moved up from 7th to 6th position.
Coming out of the fifth turn of the second lap, the No. 5 MACH SYAKEN MC86 MC86 (Tetsuji Tamanaka) spun out after bumping with the No. 7 Studie BMW M6 (Seiji Ara) and came to a stop under the bridge of the first underpass. Then, at the second bridge underpass just past the 90-degree corner, the No. 55 ARTA BMW M6 GT3 (Shinichi Takagi) crashed, badly damaging its front end. To clean up these two accidents, the Safety Car was brought out to control the race. The Safety Car left the track at the end of the seventh lap and the race resumed.
After the restart, car No. 11 ran strongly and once again began to pull away from the pack from 2nd place back. Car No. 31 then began to close in on car No. 21 running in 2nd position, and behind it, the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi) and No. 0 GAINER TANAX GT-R (Andre Couto) came charging hard to make it a hot four-car battle for 2nd place. On the 16th lap, car No. 0 passed car No. 61 to move into 4th position.
After the 16th lap, the first cars began to make their routine pit stops. One title contender that had failed to qualify near the from and had been forced to start well back on the grid, the No. 3 B-MAX NDDP GT-R (Kazuki Hoshino to Jann Mardenborough) and the No 4 GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG (Tatsuya Kataoka to Nobuteru Taniguchi) elected for early routine pit stops as a tactic to get back in the race early and begin to move up through the pack in the second half. However, the tactic didn’t have much effect and both cars finished out of the points.

 

 

Past the hallway point in the race, the No. 11 GAINER TANAX AMG GT3 (Katsuyuki Hiranaka after the change) made its pit stop on the 24th lap and the No. 21 Hitotsuyama Audi R8 LMS (Tomonobu Fujii after the change) made its on the 25th lap. Both running on Dunlop tires, these two cars opted to not make a tire change in an attempt to gain time. In the race of the pit work, car No. 21 proved a bit faster and managed to return too the race in the lead. With this, the No. 21 Hitotsuyama Audi R8 LMS (Tomonobu Fujii) would be trying to outrun the competition to the goal in the second half with the No. 11 GAINER TANAX AMG GT3 (Katsuyuki Hiranaka) giving chase.

After the lead group had all finished their routine pit stops, the two cars that had taken the lead by skipping a tire change were now running in front as the track surface temperature continued to rise under strong sunlight. Along with the No. 88 MANEPA LAMBORGHINI GT3 (Manabu Orido to Kazuki Hiramine), these two, running on the same tires as the first half would now be subjected to the fierce charge of the No. 33 Excellence Porsche (Naoya Yamano to Jorg Bergmeister) now on fresh tires after its pit stop. The No. 11 car was suffering particularly from tire wear, and it was soon overtaken by car No. 88 on the 90-degree corner of lap 41 and then by car No. 33 on the 43rd lap to drop into 4th position.
After that, a battle for 2nd place heated up between car No. 88 and No. 33. Because the No. 33 car’s first-half driver Yamano had extended his stint before making the routine pit stop, his teammate Bergmeister had plenty of tire performance left to work with as he chased car No. 88. Finally on the first turn of lap 49, Bergmeister took the in-side and got past No. 88. Now in 2nd position, Bergmeister set his sights on the leading car No. 21. Although he was able to close to within two seconds of the leader, he was unable to catch it before the goal.

 

 

Having successfully held out to take the win in this way, the No. 21 Hitotsuyama Audi R8 LMS team and driver Richard Lyons were both rewarded with their first GT300 class victory. After its spectacular second-half charge, the Porsche team mounted the podium in 2nd place for the first time in a long while, and the crowd responded with well-deserved cheers for the No. 33 Excellence Porsche. Finishing 3rd was the No. 88 MANEPA LAMBORGHINI GT3.

With these results, the title race sees the No. 25 VivaC 86 MC (Takeshi Tsuchiya/Takamitsu Matsui) hold its ranking lead with 58 points by finishing 7th in this race. The other ranking leaders failed to perform well in this race, with the No. 3 B-MAX NDDP GT-R (Kazuki Hoshino/Jann Mardenborough) getting no points for its 13th-place finish to stay in 2nd-place in the ranking, but now nine points behind car No. 25. Tied for 3rd in the ranking are this day’s race-winning car No. 21 team of Lyons/Fujii and the No. 3 team. In terms of the numbers, the top seven cars in the ranking all have a shot at the title in the final race tomorrow.

 

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