2017.07.23

A Dramatic Last Lap Gives the DENSO SARD KOBELCO LC500Its First Win of the Season!

Round 4 Sportsland Sugo : Race GT500

The SUGO GT 300km RACE, Round 4 of the 2017 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, was held at Sportsland SUGO (Miyagi Prefecture) on July 23. In difficult race with rain falling intermittently the GT500 class victory went to last season’s champions, the No. 1 DENSO KOBELCO SARD LC500 driven by Heikki Kovalainen and Kohei Hirate, who came from 7th position on the starting grid to take their first victory of the season.
The GT300 race also saw a big come-from-behind victory, as the No. 11 GAINER TANAX AMG GT3 driven by Katsuyuki Hiranaka and Bjorn Wirdheim came from 17th position at the start to take the win.

 

 

 

 

Qualifying day for Round 4 of the SUPER GT series at Sportsland SUGO has seen fair weather in the morning go downhill with occasional sprinkles of rain, but the day had ended without ever seeing real wet track conditions. Then race day dawned with rain and occasional cloudiness as predicted. It turned out to be a day that showed the rainy season wasn’t over yet.
Rain continued to fall on and off, and for the start four cars, the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN LC500, No. 24 Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R, No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R and the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO LC500 chose to start the race on slick tires. But, the rain grew heavier during the Formation Lap. Then came the start of the 81-lap race at 2:36 in the afternoon.

Just after the start, the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN LC500 (Yuhi Sekiguchi) running in 4th position ran off the track at the first turn. Meanwhile, the No. 64 Epson Modulo NSX-GT (Bertrand Baguette) raced up from a 10th-position start to move into 5th position and make all top five cars in the lead NSX machines. But, when the leaders came back to the home stretch, an accident occurred that sent the rear cowl of the No. 17 KEIHIN NSX-GT (Takashi Kogure) off and flying up into the air. Although No. 17 was able to return to the pit, it eventually had to drop out of the race.
On the second lap, the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto) took over the lead, chased by three more NSX machines in the No. 16 MOTUL MUGEN NSX-GT (Hideki Mutoh), the pole-starting No. 8 ARTA NSX-GT (Nojiri Tomoki) and car No. 64. On the 7th lap, a GT300 machine crashed, bringing out the Safety Car to control the race until it could be restarted at the end of the 10th lap, only to have car No. 8 spin out on the Horseback curve of the 16th lap and fall away from the battle for the lead. With the rain continuing to fall, and at times heavily, the cars on slick tires like No. 24 could no longer wait for their routing pit stop to change tires and had to hurry back to the pit prematurely and take a time loss. Meanwhile, running strongly in the lead, car No. 100 was beginning to pull away from the rest of the pack. At the same time, the battle for 2nd place was heating up between cars No. 64 and No. 1 and the five cars chasing them. This battle allowed the leading No. 100 to widen its gap over the rest to more than 15 seconds.

 

 

As the rain fell lighter and dry line began to form along the track, among the first cars to take this opportunity for a routine pit stop to change back to slick tires was the No. 24 Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R (Joao Paulo Lima de Oliveira). However, no sooner had No. 24 returned to the race than it ran off the track and crashed. This brought out the Safety Car for the second time. This unfortunately meant that the margin of lead No. 100 had built up would be erased during the SC’s run.
Just past the halfway point in the race, the Safety Car pulled of the track and the race was restarted at the end of the 46th lap. At this moment five cars, the No. 6 WAKO'S 4CR LC500 (Andrea Caldarelli), No. 37 KeePer TOM'S LC500 (Nick Cassidy to Ryo Hirakawa), No. 8, the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Jann Mardenborough) and the No. 19 (Yuji Kunimotoへ), all headed in for their pit stops at once. Then on the next lap, No. 1 DENSO SARD KOBELCO LC500 (Heikki Kovalainen to Kohei Hirate) and the No. 46 S Road CRAFTSPORTS GT-R (Katsumasa Chiyo to Satoshi Motoyama) also made their pit stops, but at that same time two GT300 cars collided and ran off the track, bringing out the Safety Car once again. This left the leading cars in the order of No. 100, No. 64, No. 23, No. 36, No. 1 and No. 46 were all on the same lap. Which meant that the No. 1 DENSO KOBELCO SARD LC500 and No. 46 S Road CRAFTSPORTS GT-R that had already finished their pit stops suddenly had a big advent.

 

 

When the race was finally restarted at the end of the 52nd lap, the timing meant that the top four cars were falling out of the race for the lead to have their pit work done. And when cars in the pit returned to the race, the order and changed completely, with car No. 1 and No. 46 now in the lead, followed by No. 6 WAKO'S 4CR LC500 (Kazuya Oshima), No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX-GT (Takuya Izawa), No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda), No. 16 MOTUL MUGEN NSX-GT (Daisuke Nakajima), No. 8 ARTA NSX-GT (Takashi Kobayashi), No. 37 KeePer TOM'S LC500 (Ryo Hirakawa), No. 64 Epson Modulo NSX-GT (Kosuke Matsuura) and No. 36 au TOM'S LC500 (Kazuki Nakajima) in that order. This meant that all of the cars except the two leaders found themselves now running more than one lap behind.
With ten laps remaining in the race, rain began to fall again on the track. The gap between the two lead cars No. 1 and No. 46 was gradually getting smaller, and before long the two machines were running nose-to-tail. Battling side-by-side now as they entered the last lap were last year’s champion with two career GT500 titles, Hirate (No. 1), and the three-time champion “Mister GT-R” Motoyama (No. 46). When they reached the SP Corner, the heavy rain that had fallen just past the Horseback Corner cause the two machines to both run off the track. Then, as No. 1 was getting back on the track, it was hit by No. 46. Both drivers barely managed to keep their machines from spinning out as they clung to the track, and of the two it No. 1 that was able to recover more quickly as No. 46 momentary faltered, enabling Hirate to pull ahead into the lead and race on to the checkered flag and victory.
For the No. 1 DENSO KOBELCO SARD LC500 it was the first win of the 2017 season. For the LEXUS LC500, it was the fourth consecutive victory of the season. Finishing the race in 2nd place came the No. 46 S Road CRAFTSPORTS GT-R. This gave the GT-R its first podium finish of the season. The No. 6 WAKO'S 4CR LC500 finished 3rd to move into 1st place in the season’s Drivers’ ranking. The first to finish among the NSX-GT cars, for which the race had turned into a nightmare, was the No. 8 ARTA NSX-GT in 5th place.

 

 

 

 

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