2018.10.08

[Official Test at Twin Ring Motegi : Day 1] WedsSport ADVAN LC500 on top! GT-Rs 1-2 in the morning session. GULF NAC PORSCHE 911 is fastest in GT300

On October 8, the first day of the SUPER GT Official Tests at TWIN RING MOTEGI got underway. With Round 7 of the 2018 series scheduled to run at AUTOPOLIS (Oct. 20-21) and the final round to be held at TWIN RING MOTEGI (Nov. 11-12), the teams began their tests to determine what tires they will use in light of their respective weight handicaps at the two remaining races. These tests here at Motegi will continue through tomorrow.

 

 

 

Being the final day of a 3-day national holiday, TWIN RING MOTEGI was packed with fans from early in the morning ready to watch the start of test 2-hour session 1 at 10:00 am.
In the early stages of the session, the No. 1 KeePer TOM'S LC500 (Ryo Hirakawa/Nick Cassidy) and the No. 36 au TOM'S LC500 (Kazuki Nakajima/Yuhi Sekiguchi) recorded the 1st and 2nd fastest lap times. As they were joined by the No. 8 ARTA NSX-GT (Tomoki Nojiri/Takuya Izawa), the No. 17 KEIHIN NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Takashi Kogure) and the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Jenson Button), the times went down from the 1’39 range into the 1’38 range.
As the session entered its final stages, the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda/Ronnie Quintarelli) recorded the fastest time. Quintarelli went on to bring his best time down to 1’37.405. But Sasaki in the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Daiki Sasaki/Jann Mardenborough) beat that time with a lap of 1’37.280. This would be the fastest time of the morning session. Second fastest was the MOTUL AUTECH GT-R, and they were followed by Cassidy in the No. 1 KeePer TOM'S LC500, De Oliveira in the No. 24 Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R (Joao Paulo Lima De Oliveira/Mitsunori Takaboshi), meaning that three of the top four machines were NISSAN GT-R NISMO GT500s.

 

At the end of session 1, NISMO’s Toshikazu Tanaka, overall manager responsible for the four NISSAN teams analyzed the situation, saying, “The tests have only just begun and we don’t know how things will go based on the results of this session alone. I’m sure that our rivals haven’t shown all that they have in their hands yet. But I think that the overall performance is improving. Also, we have cotton good responses concerning out second engine we introduced this season, but I think that even more important than that is the progress that has been made in the machines’ set-up and the integration with the tires. Anyway, I don’t think we have any chance of winning the championship title unless we win both of the two remaining rounds of the series. So, I want to see us win the next round at AUTOPOLIS and then the final round.”

 

 

In the early going, Hirakawa in the No. 1 KeePer TOM'S LC500 ran a fastest time of 1’37.970. Then Tachikawa in the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO LC500 (Yuji Tachikawa/Hiroaki Ishiura) beat that with a 1’37.723 lap. One hour into the session, the No. 31 TOYOTA PRIUS apr GT that had appeared to be at the start of a recovery (V Corner) suddenly came to a stop and the session had to be halted. Six minutes later the session was restarted.
From the early stages into the middle stages of the session the No. 36 au TOM'S LC500 driven by Sekiguchi that had been unable to improve on its times finally recorded a best lap with 30 minutes remaining in the session. With this time of 1’37.617, No. 36 moved to the top of the time board, and soon the mixed session came to an end.

 

 

In the GT500 class-only session, Yamashita in the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN LC500 (Yuji Kunimoto/Kenta Yamashita) ran a super lap of 1’37.241 to move up to the top of the time board. Then Sekiguchi in the au TOM'S LC500 lower the team’s best time to 1’37.467 but failed to better the time of Yamashita. With this, the afternoon session came to an end with a 1-2 finish for the LC500, as the WedsSport ADVAN LC500 took top position followed by the au TOM'S LC500, ZENT CERUMO.

 

After the day’s tests were over, the man in charge overall for the GT500 class LC500 development at TOYOTA CUSTOMIZING & DEVELOPMENT Co., Ltd., Yoji Nagai, commented: “Although we managed to get the top times, as you can see the competition is very close. The question is how we can really get ahead of the competition. There is probably no more room for any big improvements in the hardware (due to the regulation restrictions). So, we will be choosing the best parts from among those that have been approved to supply to the teams, and all we can do then is to leave it up to the teams to work on their machine set-ups and integration with the tires. There are two rounds left in the season. Traditionally, Motegi has been a good track for the LC500, so we hope to get as many points as possible at AUTOPOLIS and then go into the decisive race in the last round. That is our strategy,” he concluded.

 

 

 

 

In the GT300 class, the fastest time in the early stages of the morning session was recorded by the No. 25 HOPPY 86 MC (Takamitsu Matsui/Sho Tsuboi/Kazuto Kotaka) followed by the No. 7 D'station Porsche (driving only by Tomonobu Fujii) and the No. 31 TOYOTA PRIUS apr GT (Koki Saga/Kohei Hirate). Entering the middle stages of the session, Hiramine in the No. 88 MANEPA LAMBORGHINI GT3 (Kazuki Hiramine/Marco Mapelli) took the top position with a time of 1’47.263.
In the mixed class period of the afternoon session, the No. 88 MANEPA LAMBORGHINI GT3 was again fastest. But in the GT300 class-only period, Gamou in the No. 65 LEON CVSTOS AMG (Haruki Kurosawa/Naoya Gamou) moved up to second position on the time board. Then Fujii in the No. 7 D'station Porsche took the top spot with a time of 1’47.31.
In the end, it was the No. 9 GULF NAC PORSCHE 911 (Rintaro Kubo/Keishi Ishikawa) that stole the top spot. Ishikawa ran a time of 1’47.140 to beat out the veteran Fujii. This remained the fastest time of the afternoon session and the best time of the first day of testing for the GT300 class.

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

The condition of the car is very good. You can probably say it is the best it has been this season. It seems that the changes made in the settings have been in the right direction. Yokohama also prepared some new tires for us and the feeling isn’t bad, but in the end it was with the previous tires that I got our fastest time. We were 11th in the morning session. In the afternoon session we were around 8th and 9th, so I thought it would be a tough day, but then we changed our set-up and with that I got the fastest time.
Due to the Red Flag stoppage time, there was the feeling that we didn’t have as much time as we hoped for, but we were still able to complete our test schedule for the day. Tomorrow we may do some qualifying simulations, but mainly we plan to do long-run testing.

 

Since the previous round at SUGO the condition of the car has been good and the flow has gone well through the tests this time. I’m glad that we got the fastest time, but the issue for our team is our race pace. Tomorrow we also plan to have [Rintaro] Kubo-san do a qualifying simulation and I will be working to increase our race pace in a long run.
Things have improved recently and we have gotten good results. For me, this is my first season driving a Porsche. It has been from the middle stages into the late stages of the series that I have finally gotten used to the car, and I think that is part of the reason we have gotten faster. Getting the top time like this has certainly boosted my confidence a lot. I intend to work hard again tomorrow.

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