2017.10.07

First SUPER GT Pole Ever for Hitotsuyama Audi R8 LMS in GT300 Class

Round 7 Chang International Circuit : Qualifying GT300

The official qualifying for the Chang SUPER GT RACE, Round 7 of the 2017 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, was held on October 7th at the Chang International Circuit in Buriram, Thailand. In the GT500 class, the No. 37 KeePer TOM'S LC500 (Ryo Hirakawa/Nick Cassidy) prevailed in a fierce qualifying competition to take its first pole position of the season. In the GT300 class, the No. 21 Hitotsuyama Audi R8 LMS (Richard Lyons/Masataka Yanagida) won the class pole in tricky conditions on a partially wet track.

 

 

The first car to run a timed lap in the GT300 class session was the No. 3 B-MAX NDDP GT-R (Mitsunori Takaboshi), posting a time of 1’41.495 that became the target time for the rest of the cars. Then the No. 88 MANEPA LAMBORGHINI GT3 (Kazuki Hiramine) improved on that with a time of 1’41.335 to move into the top spot, but that was quickly taken again by the No. 4 GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG (Tatsuya Kataoka) with a time of 1’41.521, after which Kataoka returned to the pit to watch the action for three minutes before returning to the track. The result was that most of the cars followed this pattern, changing their tires or settings for the second half of the session.
As the track conditions gradually improved, the teams began to get better times. Among them, it was the No. 21 Hitotsuyama Audi R8 LMS (Richard Lyons) that was first to break the 1’40 barrier with a time of 1’39.955 to take the top position. Just after that, the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi) recorded a time of 1’40.913 to move into 2nd position barely ahead of the No. 11 GAINER TANAX AMG GT3 (Katsuyuki Hiranaka). Meanwhile, the No. 25 VivaC 86 MC (Kenta Yamashita) was having a difficulty improving its times and the team decided to return to the pit and change all four tires before going back to the track and begin its time attacks again. Likewise, the No. 7 Studie BMW M6 (Jorg Muller) that had recorded the fastest time in the morning practice also returned to the pit once and then resumed its attacks. By this time, there seemed to be no more of the transmission trouble that had hindered the car in the practice session, but as Muller was returning to the track, he cut across the white line and was penalized by having his best time disqualified. This meant that No. 7 had to record two more fast times instead of just one.
With two minutes remaining in the last stages of the session, the No. 51 JMS P.MU LMcorsa RC F GT3 (Sho Tsuboi) also broke the 1’40 barrier with a time of 1’39.794 to move into the top position. But No. 21 soon retook the top spot with a time of 1’39.593. On its final run, the No. 65 LEON CVSTOS AMG (Naoya Gamou) moved into the 2nd place spot with a lap of 1’39.664 but failed to beat No. 21’s time. This made No. 21, No. 65 and No. 51 the three fastest and the only ones in the 1’39 range. Behind them came the No. 88 MANEPA LAMBORGHINI GT3 (Kazuki Hiramine) and the No. 55 ARTA BMW M6 GT3 (Shinichi Takagi). No. 7 managed to run two laps in the 1’40 range, but with the faster of the two disqualified because of the penalty, the team ended the session in 9th position, still qualifying it for Q2. On the other hand, last year’s winner here in Thailand, car No. 25, only managed to place 19th and thus failed to make it to Q2.

 

 

The GT300 class Q2 session began at 3:45 (local time). Once again it began raining lightly just before the start of the session, causing the track to approach wet condition and making the tire choice difficult for the teams. The No. 4 GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKUAMG (Nobuteru Taniguchi) and No. 7 Studie BMW M6 (Seiji Ara) returned to the pit after one lap on the track. They had started out on slick tire, which proved to be hopeless, so they changed to wet tires and quickly returned to the track.
In the last three minutes of the session, the cars began making their serious time trials. Among them, it was the No. 55 ARTA BMW M6 GT3 (Shinichi Takagi) that moved up to the top position first with a time of 1’39.473. Then car No. 4 also recorded a fast time of 1’39.641 to move up to 2nd position. With 1 minute remaining in the session, the No.61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Hideki Yamauchi) improved its time to 1’39.587 but failed to beat the time of No. 55. With less than one minute remaining, the No. 21 Hitotsuyama Audi R8 LMS Masataka Yanagida that had failed to break the 1’40 barrier to that point ran a super lap of 1’38.142 to jump to the top of the time board. After that, the No. 51 JMS P.MU LMcorsa RC F GT3 (Yuichi Nakayama) also improved to a time of 1’39.154, but that left it still about one second behind No. 21, leaving it in 2nd place.
With these results, the No. 21 Hitotsuyama Audi R8 LMS secured the pole position for the race. For Audi Team Hitotsuyama it was a felicitous first pole ever in SUPER GT competition. For Yanagida it was his first GT300 class pole position since 2010 and his seventh overall in the class. The 2nd position went to car No. 51 and 3rd to car No. 55. Second place holder in the series driver standing, the Taniguchi/Kataoka pair of car No. 4, finished Q2 in 4th position, while the driver ranking leader, car No. 65, finished in 9th position.

 

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