2017.06.17

[Official test at SUGO: Day 1] MOTUL MUGEN NSX-GT tops Day 1! B-MAX NDDP GT-R gets best lap time in GT300.

Official test: Sportsland SUGO 6/17 (Sat)

SUPER GT's third official test of the year started at Sportsland SUGO on June 17. On Day 1 of the test, No.16 MOTUL MUGEN NSX-GT (Hideki Mutoh / Daisuke Nakajima) marked the fastest time in the GT500 class with 1 min 11.787 sec. In GT300 class, the top time was marked by No.3 B-MAX NDDP GT-R (Kazuki Hoshino / Mitsunori Takaboshi). The test will continue on tomorrow.

 

 

 

Morning session ends with three makers sharing top 3

In the morning session, Nojiri at the wheel of No.8 ARTA NSX-GT (Tomoki Nojiri / Takashi Kobayashi) recorded the top time with 1 min 12.066 sec. No.6 WAKO'S 4CR LC500 (Kazuya Oshima) followed with mere 0.079 sec gap along with No.24 Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R (Daiki Sasaki / Joao Paulo Lima De Oliveira. Lap time recorded by Oliveira) at third place. The session ended with three manufacturers sharing the top positions.
Red flag was displayed (session suspension) five times during the session and the last one caused the session to end with three minutes remaining.

Lexus LC500 squad has been prominently fast this season and won three consecutive races from the season opener, however the rivals are appearing to make ground lately also represented by a top time by No.23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda / Ronnie Quintarelli) at the tire manufacturers' test held at Suzuka just a while ago. Nonetheless, NISMO team manager Yutaka Suzuki commented modestly, "The gain in speed was from the tires rather the car. It was largely by the effort put in by Michelin to prepare good tires."
Still, Honda NSX-GT and Nissan GT-R were running comparably to LC500 in this test. However, the LC500 squad seems to still be in advantage considering how LC500s lined up behind the top three cars in the top portion of the pack.

 

 

Afternoon-topping MOTUL MUGEN NSX-GT becoming fastest of the day

Afternoon session started from 1:30PM. In contrast to the morning session which was suspended five times, the afternoon session saw no suspension and the teams were vigorously executing their testing menu. No.36 au TOM'S LC500 (James Rossiter) ran the highest number of laps which Rossiter ran surprising 116 laps just by himself since Kazuki Nakajima absented the official test.
Until the GT500 exclusive session held at the last ten minute, No.17 KEIHIN NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi / Takashi Kogure) was at top followed by No.19 WedsSport ADVAN LC500 (Yuhi Sekiguchi) and No.8 ARTA NSX-GT.

And then Mutoh in No.16 MOTUL MUGEN NSX-GT (Hideki Mutoh / Daisuke Nakajima), which stayed behind at 11th position until then, made a super lap at last moment of the GT500 class exclusive session. Mutoh's lap time of 1 min 11.787 sec eventually became the best time of the day. In addition, No.17 KEIHIN NSX-GT (Kogure) followed with a slight gap to complete one-two by Honda NSX-GT despite the field is seen to be advantageous to LC500. However, Nagataka Tezuka, team director of TEAM MUGEN fielding No.16 car, was cool in his view, "(Reason why NSX-GT was fast was because) the handicap weight was affecting LC500 squad. Every year, fast cars (in the early stage of the season) would start to load a heavy weight from around SUGO race and that would even out the field."

 

 

 

 

B-MAX NDDP GT-R fastest of Day 1 in GT300

FIA GT3 cars were showing good performances over the rival mother-chassis cars, which are known to fit well to Sportsland SUGO backed by their high cornering ability. FIA GT3 cars dominated the top four places in the morning with No.3 B-MAX NDDP GT-R (Kazuki Hoshino / Mitsunori Takaboshi) sitting on top with 1 min 18.611 sec followed by No.21 Hitotsuyama Audi R8 LMS (Richard Lyons / Masataka Yanagida), No.51 JMS P.MU LMcorsa RC F GT3 (Yuichi Nakayama / Sho Tsuboi), and No.11 GAINER TANAX AMG GT3 (Katsuyuki Hiranaka).

Afternoon looked similar although the top lap time was taken away by No.25 VivaC 86 MC (Takamitsu Matsui / Kenta Yamashita. Lap time marked by Yamashita), and the second to fourth places were filled in by No.3 car and other FIA GT3 cars with a slight time difference. In the overall result of Day 1, No.3 B-MAX NDDP GT-R was the fastest with the lap time it marked in the morning.

Team manager Takeshi Tsuchiya of No.25 VivaC 86 MC, the fastest car of the afternoon, gave his evaluation on the relative power balance against his rivals, "There is no way we can win if we stay like this. I don't even think we can match up against No.18 car (No.18 UPGARAGE BANDOH 86 built on the same mother-chassis) either. I was thinking a podium finish is impossible, but based on today's run we confirmed that we are at a next level. So we might get on the podium."

 

    

 

 

"All NSX CONCEPT-GTs were using Bridgestone tires up until last year, and the basic setting of the car was established accordingly to the tires. Although we got new NSX-GT from this year, the basic setting was still for Bridgestone tires. But we finally found a good setting, or at least confirmed the direction we should head to, for Yokohama tires that we use.
We focused on trying many different (basic) setting on the car from the morning today rather than concentrating on tire test, and, of course, there were bad things here and there, but we found a good direction. We need to make another progress to a higher level from here, but, since we are not completed with the test menu for the tires, I think we will mainly work on the tire test tomorrow. Anyways, we finally made it to this point."

 

"Yes, we got the top time, but I'm not relieved at all. We got this time when we were doing a serious qualifying simulation, but you know the mother-chassis cars could have been running with a full load of gas and got that time. We had to do our best to get the lap time, so I think it would be difficult to simply improve the lap time from here.
But we have to work a lot more to cut down the lap time into the (1 min) 17 sec mark in order to beat the mother-chassis cars. For sure, we will try many different things tomorrow to find the “thing” that we need."

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