2018.08.05

au TOM'S LC500 takes come-from-behind win! 1-2 finish for TOM'S!

Round 5 Fuji Speedway : Race GT500

The FUJI 500 mile RACE, Round 5 of the 2018 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, was run on August 5th at Fuji Speedway in Shizuoka Prefecture. In this longest race at 500 miles in the series, the No. 36 au TOM’S LC500 (Kazuki Nakajima/Yuhi Sekiguchi) won the GT500 class race. In the GT300 class race, the No. 55 ARTA BMW M6 GT3 (Shinichi Takagi/Sean Walkinshaw) team that is always strong at Fuji won their third straight race at the Fuji Speedway with a pole-to-win finish. This win extended Takagi’s record for most GT300 wins, and it also set a new SUPER GT record for most consecutive wins by the same driver pair at the same circuit.

 

 

 

In the early stages of the race, the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Ronnie Quintarelli) and No. 24 ForumEngineering ADVAN GT-R (Mitsunori Takaboshi) led, followed by the No. 36 au TOM’S LC500 (Yuhi Sekiguchi) in 3rd place. It looked as if gaps between these three were growing, but on the 23rd lap car No. 36 moved up from 3rd into 2nd position. Then, as it began closing in on the leader in front, car No. 23 opted to make its first pit stop on lap 31. This began the first round of pit stops by the other teams as well.
This left car No. 36 running as the tentative leader until it made its pit stop, but due to a time loss in changing its right rear tire, by the time all of the cars had finished their pit stop, car No. 36 found itself in 4th position. This left car No. 24 (Joao Paulo de Oliveira) and two more NISSAN GT-R NISMO GT500 cars monopolizing the top spots.
The No. 23 car kept this lead until the middle stages of the race when it lost the lead to one of the other GT-R, car No. 12. After taking the lead on the 55 lap of the race, No. 12 continued to hold that position. Meanwhile, it was car No. 36 (Kazuki Nakajima) that began to chip away at the GT-R fortress. After passing car No. 24 on the 60th lap and then car No. 23 on the 64th lap, Nakajima in car No. 36 started to give chase to car No. 12.
Car No. 12 made its second pit stop at the end of the 70 lap of the race and then returned to the race without mishap. On the other hand, car No. 36 waited until the 73rd lap to make its pit stop, but again there was trouble in changing the car’s right rear tire, which set it back in the race order once again. By the time all of the cars had finished their pit stops, car No. 12 was in the lead, followed by car No. 23 and the No. 1 KeePer TOM’S LC500 (Nick Cassidy) and car No. 24 in 4th. As for the No. 36 au TOM’S LC500 (Yuhi Sekiguchi), it was pushing hard to make up the ground lost due the extended pit time, and by the 79th lap it had caught and passed car No. 1 to move into 3rd place once again.

 

 

As the race passed the midway point, the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Daiki Sasaki) continued to hold the lead. Behind it, the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Ronnie Quintarelli) and No. 36 au TOM’S LC500 (Yuhi Sekiguchi) kept in pursuit. After a successful third pit stop, car No. 36 (Kazuki Nakajima) managed to move up to 2nd position, but car No. 12 still held the lead.
On the 125th lap of the race, however, car No. 1 passed car No. 23 and a determined charge by the LEXUS LC500 and Honda NSX-GT cars ensued. From behind also came the No.17 KEIHIN NSX-GT (Takashi Kogure), the No. 8 ARTA NSX-GT (Tomoki Nojiri) and the No. 24 Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R (Joao Paulo de Oliveira) along with the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX-GT (Jenson Button) giving chase as well.
Then, on the 142nd lap, the lead car No. 12 finished its required fourth pit stop and driver change without mishap. It looked at this point as if car No. 12 was on its way to victory, but on the 148th lap car No. 12 suddenly began to slow down. To repair what turned out to be a disconnected intercooler pipe required a 3-minute pit stop. That time loss took No. 12 out of contention for its first win Round 5 at Fuji in the 2016 season.

 

 

With this, the No. 36 au TOM’S LC500 (Sekiguchi) took over the lead, with the No. 1 KeePer TOM’S LC500 (Cassidy) in 2nd place. But from this point car No. 36’s pace became erratic and the gap with car No. 1 dropped at one point to 1.350 sec. As it turned out, however, this was only a braking safety measure and it never led to an overtake. Thus, No. 36 won this 500 mile race and felt redemption for the painful loss in the previous round in Thailand, when they ran out of gas on the last lap. It also meant a 1-2 finish for the TOM’s teams.
Coming home in 3rd was the No. 17 KEIHIN NSX-GT (Kodai Tsukakoshi/Takuya Kogure) that started from 14th position on the grid after having missed the official qualifying due to engine trouble. Among the GT-R cars the No. 24 Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R (Joao Paulo de Oliveira/(Mitsunori Takaboshi) was the top finisher in 6th place.
With these results, car No. 1 (Hirakawa/Cassidy) moves up to 1st place in the ranking with 47 points, car No. 36’s Sekiguchi is alone in 2nd place and the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX-GT team’s Naoki Yamamoto and Jenson Button are in 3rd place.
Also notable is that the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO LC500 that had a bad crash in the official practice and was unable to complete repairs in time for the qualifying and had to start from the last spot on the grid with inadequate tuning, still managed to finish 8th thanks to the dauntless driving of Yuji Tachikawa and Hiroaki Ishiura.

 

 

 

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