2018.07.01

Rd. 4 GT500 Race: DENSO KOBELCO SARD LC500 emerges from fierce LC500 battle to take first win of the season!

Round 4 Chang International Circuit (Thailand) : Race GT500

On the afternoon of July 1, the Chang SUPER GT RACE, Round 4 of the 2018 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, was run at the Chang International Circuit in Thailand. In the GT500 class, the No. 39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD LC500 driven by Heikki Kovalainen and Kamui Kobayashi claimed their first win of the season and also gave Kobayashi his first GT500 win ever. In the GT300 class, the No. 11 GAINER TANAX GT-R driven by Katsuyuki Hiranaka and Hironobu Yasuda was the winner.

 

 

 

Race day for the Chang SUPER GT RACE, round four of the series and its only race competed outside Japan, dawned without a cloud in the blue skies over the Chang International Circuit in Buriram. During race week, when the weather forecasts called for evening rain day after day, a rain squall had indeed affect yesterday’s qualifying. But, no midday rain was predicted for this race day. The weather remained fair all day, but the heat was sweltering.
The race, which would be competed over a total of 66 laps, got off to a start with the Formation Lap at 3:00 in the afternoon. The No. 16 MOTUL MUGEN NSX-GT (Hideki Mutoh) got off to a good start from pole position, but the No. 17 KEIHIN NSX-GT (Takashi Kogure) got a slow start starting from 2nd position on the grid and was passed by Heikki Kovalainen in the 3rd-position grid starting No. 39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD LC500, moving him into 2nd place.
On the 11th lap of the race, car No. 17 collided with the No. 24 Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R (Joao Paulo Lima De Oliveira/Mitsunori Takaboshi) and it was passed by the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN LC500 (Kenta Yamashita). The battle for 4th place developed between cars No. 17 and No. 24, the No.12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Jann Mardenboroug) and the No. 6 WAKO'S 4CR LC500 (Felix Rosenqvist), making it a contest between four blue cars, until car No. 6 was able to break away. The next big development in this battle came on the 23rd lap. The two GT-R cars, No. 12 and No. 24 collided with each other on the home straight. No. 24 got bumped off the track and was forced to retire from the race.
Car No. 16 running in the lead looked at first as if it was going to leave the rest behind, but gradually No. 39 began to catch up and finally pass No. 16 to take the lead on lap 19. No. 16 was also passed eventually by No. 6 by the time the first stint ended. It was an eventful first half of the race that saw all of the car change position before the pit stops except the leading No. 39, which at one point ad opened up a lead of nearly seven seconds.

 

 

The routine pit stops began on the 25th lap with the No. 17 KEIHIN NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi). The next to make early stops were two NSX-GT cars, the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto) and the No. 64 Epson Modulo NSX-GT (Bertrand Baguette). But, after staring out again a bad feeling in the No. 100 car forced it to return to the pit immediately for a secondary tightening of the wheel nuts, causing a big time loss. After that, there was more trouble than usual in the pit, as car No. 16 had its door failed to close, thus prolonging its stop, and cars No 1 and No. 38 both had trouble in their tire changes. Meanwhile, among the GT-Rs, the No. 3 CRAFTSPORTS MOTUL GT-R (Katsumasa Chiyo) team opted not to change any of the four tires, and the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda) also chose a no-tire-change strategy in order to go for the win in the second half.
By the 36th lap, as the race entered it second half, all of the GT500 cars had completed their routine pit stops. At his point, the order of the top four was the No. 39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD LC500 (Kamui Kobayashi) in the lead, followed by the No. 6 WAKO'S 4CR LC500 (Kazuya Oshima), No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN LC500 (Yuji Kunimoto) and the No. 36 au TOM'S LC500 (Yuhi Sekiguchi), giving the LC500 a sweep of the top places.

 

 

The battle for the lead began to heat up after that. Among the leaders, the pace of car No. 36 driven by Kazuki Nakajima and Sekiguchi, which had started from 10th position on the grid, was amazingly fast, as it passed car No. 19 and proceeded to chase the two cars in the lead.
This made it a 3-way contest for the lead. On the 56th lap car No. 6 over-ran a turn as it was trying to pass car No. 39. Seeing this, car No. 36 was quick to pass. After holding off the assault by car No. 6, Kobayashi in car No. 39 now found himself under severe pressure from Sekiguchi in car No. 36. This battle would end dramatically on the final lap of the race, end car No. 36 suddenly slowed down coming out of the first turn of the last lap. The car had run out of gas! With this, car No. 36 came to a stop at trackside and was only able to finish the race in 10th place without ever taking the checkered flag. Meanwhile, with car No. 39 having won the race, 2nd place went to the No. 6 WAKO'S 4CR LC500 and 3rd to the WedsSport ADVAN LC500, thus giving the LC500 not only its first win of the season but also a sweep of the podium. Fourth place went to another LC500, the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO LC500 (Yuji Tachikawa/Hiroaki Ishiura) and 5th place went to the best-finishing NSX-GT, the No.16 MOTUL MUGEN NSX-GT driven in the second stint by Hideki Mutoh), while 6th place went to the top GT-R, the No.12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Daiki Sasaki).
For Kamui Kobayashi this meant his first ever GT500 podium finish was also his first win in just his third SUPER GT race. For Kovalainen, it was his third win, and the points from this win moved him up to the top of the Drivers Chmpionship point standings. Second in the standings is the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX-G pair of Naoki Yamamoto and Jenson Button, who this race finished out of the points in 11th place.

 

 

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