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Race Report
2018.08.04
MOTUL AUTECH GT-R Wins Its First Pole of the Season!

MOTUL AUTECH GT-R Wins Its First Pole of the Season!の画像

Round 5 Fuji Speedway : Qualifying GT500

The Official Qualifying for the FUJI GT 500 mile RACE, Round 5 of the 2018 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series was held on August 4 at Fuji Speedway (Shizuoka Prefecture). In the GT500, the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda/Ronnie Quintarelli) driven by Quintarelli won pole position for the first time since the last round of the 2017 season at Motegi, while also giving the NISSAN GT-R NISMO GT500 its first pole of the season. In the GT300 class, it was Sho Tsuboi in the No. 25 HOPPY 86MC (Takamitsu Matsui/Sho Tsuboi) who won his first class pole position.

 

 

The hot GT-Rs finish 1-2 in Q1 with the MOTUL AUTECH GT-R fastest

This day at Fuji Speedway was blessed with fair skies from morning. By afternoon, as the start of the qualifying drew near, a thin cloud over spread over the track, but the sunlight was still string and the air temperature had risen to over 30 degrees Celsius. So this would be a qualifying competed in the mid-summer heat.

In the knock-out format GT500 class qualifying, the fastest eight cars in the Q1 session would move on to the Q2 session to battle for pole position. That Q1 session began at 2:55 in the afternoon. Few cars took to the track immediately after the start of this 15-minute session, with most not leaving their pits until about nine minutes remained in the session. The first to enter the track was the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Jann Mardenborough) after which the other cars follow one by one. The last cars to leave the pit were the No. 17 KEIHIN NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi) and the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO LC500 (Hiroaki Ishiura). Car No. 38 had developed brake trouble in the morning’s official practice session suffered a bad crash at the TGR Corner (the first turn). Despite desperate efforts to repair it, they failed to repair it in time for the qualifying. Also, car No. 17’s engine failed to start and it was unable to run in Q1 as well, and its qualifying ended there.
As the first out on the track, car No. 12 was the first to break the 1’30 barrier with a time of 1’29.666. Soon after that the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/1’29.574), No. 8 ARTA NSX-GT (Tomoki Nojiri/1’29.355), No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda/1’29.124) and No. 3 CRAFTSPORTS MOTUL GT-R (Katsumasa Chiyo/1’29.076) bettered that time one after the other.
The last one to run a super lap was Matsuda in car No. 23, with a time of 1’29.006 to move him to the top of the time board again. This ended the Q1 session with car No. 23 fastest, followed by the car No. 3, giving the NISSAN GT-R NISMO GT500 a 1-2 finish for the session. Third and 4th positions went to two LEXUS LC500 machines, the No. 36 au TOM'S LC500 (Kazuki Nakajima) and the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN LC500 (Kenta Yamashita), while the fastest Honda NSX-GT was the No. 8 ARTA NSX-GT (Tomoki Nojiri in 7th position.

 

 

MOTUL AUTECH GT-R fastest in both sessions! The au TOM'S LC500 squeezes in 3rd

The GT500 Q2 session started on schedule at 3:38. As a 10-minute session, its length would be shorter than Q1, but as with Q1 the first half of the session went by without much action. The first time to be posted as a preliminary top time was a 1’29.563 by the No. 8 ARTA NSX-GT (Takuya Izawa) on its third lap. First to best this time was the No. 3 CRAFTSPORTS MOTUL GT-R (Satoshi Motoyama/1’28.872). Then the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Daiki Sasaki) moved into the 2nd spot on the board with a 1’29.062 lap.
Then, as in Q1, it was the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R, driven this time by Ronnie Quintarelli, that came in at the end with a fastest time of 1’28.461. This brought the Q2 session to an end with car No. 23 as the provisional pole position holder. It was the first pole of the season for a GT-R car, and for car No. 23 it was the first since Round 8 of the 2017 season at Motegi. For Quintarelli it was his 11th SUPER GT pole.
Finishing the session second fastest was the No. 24 ForumEngineering ADVAN GT-R Mitsunori Takaboshi/1’28.493), meaning that there will be two GT-Rs on the front row of tomorrow’s grid. Finishing 3rd was the No. 36 au TOM'S LC500 (Yuhi Sekiguchi/1’28.749), while all of the rest of the top 5 were GT-R machines. The best finish for the Honda NSX-GT cars was an 8th place for the No. 8 ARTA NSX-GT (Takuya Izawa/1’29.563).

 

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