2018.04.17

[Official test at Suzuka: Day 2] RAYBRIG NSX-GT fastest on the dry and the wet track! SYNTIUM Apple LOTUS also fastest in both sessions in GT300 class

In contrast to the fair weather of Day 1, this day brought cloudy skies. On Day 2 of the SUPER GT Official Tests at Suzuka Circuit the track was dry for the morning session but in the afternoon rain fell and the track became wet. Still, the teams took this opportunity to diligently run tests with their rain tires. This second day brought the Official Tests to a successful close.

 

 

 

 

Although there was some fear of rain in the morning session and the skies remained cloudy, the track stayed dry throughout the session. In the early going, the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Jenson Button) stayed at the top of the time board. The two No. 100 drivers took turns driving and Button pushed hard to record the session’s fastest time of 1’46.672.
The second fastest time in the morning session was a 1’46.850 by Matsuda in the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda/Ronnie Quintarelli). While the day before No. 23 had been rather inconspicuous with 15th-place time in the morning and 5th place in the afternoon, this time they got solid results. Matsuda was smiling as he said, “We found good tires and good settings. The feeling was also good in our long-run tests (simulating race conditions with continuous laps), so it made for a good, full set of tests.”
The third fastest time went to Nick Cassidy in the No. 1 KeePer TOM'S LC500 (Ryo Hirakawa/Nick Cassidy) with a time of 1’47.154. This meant each of the three makes, NSX-G, GT-R and LC500 had one car in the top three in the morning session.

 

 

Although the morning had seen some light rain, the track had remained dry throughout the test session. But during the noontime break, the rain got heavier and by the time the afternoon session started, the track was completely wet.
Just after 2:00 in the afternoon, the No. 36 au TOM'S LC500 (Kazuki Nakajima/Yuhi Sekiguchi) and the No. 65 LEON CVSTOS AMG (Haruki Kurosawa/Naoya Gamou) collided at the second turn, scattering broken car parts across the track. This brought out the Red Flag to stop the session until the track could be cleaned up. Despite the continuing rain and wet conditions, this would thankfully be the only time the Red Flag was shown. So, the teams were able to diligently go about the work of testing their rain settings and getting data on their wet-use tires.
Notably, these rainy conditions failed to put a damper on the speed of the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX-GT. On the wet track of the afternoon test session, Button drove several laps from the SC practice session, after which Yamamoto took the wheel and ran repeated laps. In the early stages of the afternoon session, the winner of this year’s opening round, the No. 17 KEIHIN NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Takashi Kogure) held the top spot on the time board, but then Yamamoto recorded a 1’53.565 time that moved No. 100 to the top spot. When the session ended, bringing a close to the Suzuka Official Tests, no one in the afternoon session had been able to better that time by Yamamoto.
Later, Yamamoto commented with satisfaction: “The car doesn’t feel bad, and best of all, we were able to run fast in both dry and wet conditions. So, I think we made our (No. 100) presence felt in a way that must have been unsettling for our rivals. That was a big achievement.” Finishing the session with the second and third fastest times were the No. 8 ARTA NSX-GT (Tomoki Nojiri/Takuya Izawa) and the KEIHIN NSX-GT, thus giving the NSX-GT cars a sweep of the top three places.
At the end of the session, Ishiura in the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO LC500 (Yuji Tachikawa/Hiroaki Ishiura) recorded a fourth fastest time of 1’54.892, and that was followed by the No. 6 WAKO'S 4CR LC500 (Kazuya Oshima/Felix Rosenqvist). Among the GT-R teams, the fastest time went to Mardenborough in the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Daiki Sasaki/Jann Mardenborough) with the 7th best time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the dry morning session, the No. 2 SYNTIUM Apple LOTUS (Kazuho Takahashi/Hiroki Katoh) that had been fastest in Day 1 once again recorded the fastest time, making it the fastest on both days.
Finishing just 0.015 sec. behind in 2nd position was the No. 96 K-tunes RC F GT3 (Morio Nitta/Yuichi Nakayama). It was Nakayama who recorded that time just a day after returning to Japan from a race at Nürburgring in Germany. Nakayama also ran a top time in the wet conditions of the afternoon session. He smiled as he commented afterwards: “[Morio] Nitta set up the car well and it felt good running in both the dry and wet conditions today. I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t get the fastest time on the dry track, but I was close. It has been a good set of tests.”
The No. 7 D'station Porsche (Tomonobu Fujii) that had finished 2nd in the season opener at Okayama suffered mechanical trouble in the morning and didn’t run in the afternoon. With the rain in the afternoon, several of the GT300 teams finished their tests soon after the start of the session.

 

   

 

 

Today the conditions were difficult with the low track surface temperatures. But the car was a little better than yesterday, and as I also got to know the car better, I was able to run a top time. In the afternoon session, I only drove in the SC practice time, after which I let Naoki-san [Yamamoto] take over. So, I didn’t have the chance to drive in the wet conditions and check the performance then, but according to Naoki-san it seems it was not bad.
The next race will be at Fuji Speedway, which has a different track character from Okayama (site of the opening round), and the race after that will be here at Suzuka. I am confident that the team will do a good job for us again. So I am looking forward to both Fuji and Suzuka. I am happy now that we have just had what was almost a perfect series of tests.

 

Looking back over our test data from yesterday, we have been gradually improving in the areas that we were able to make improvements in, so I think the car’s set-up is good now. But our rivals are also fast, so we can’t be too confident. This is true not only for the FIA GT3 cars but also the mother chassis cars. It seems that many of the other cars were carrying handicap weights in anticipation of the race at Fuji. We were running as fast as we could, so actually, I was hoping we would have an even bigger time advantage. So, we can’t be too optimistic. But, I think this result (the fastest time) was made possible because we made progress step-by-step, and I feel a little more confident knowing that.
This time, we reviewed a number of things about the car, and by reducing the drag, the down-force was also effectively reduced, but I feel the new balance wasn’t bad. I hope that will bring good results at [a high-speed track like] Fuji Speedway.

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