2018.10.09

[Official Tests at Twin Ring Motegi - Day 2] LC500 teams show advantage! au TOM'S LC500 is fastest! GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG on top in GT300 class

October 9 saw the second day (last day) of action in the SUPER GT official tests at TWIN RING MOTEGI. Despite being a weekday, many fans turned out at Motegi this day to watch the SUPER GT cars in action on the track. For the teams, it was a day to work hard on their tests to determine what tires and machine set-up they will use in Round 7 at AUTOPOLIS and the final round at TWIN RING MOTEGI.

 

 

 

The third test session of the 2-day Official Tests began at 9:30 in the morning. Sun began to shine through the cloud cover and the air temperature and track rose during the session. In the early going, the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda/Ronnie Quintarelli) recorded a top time of 1’38.169 on its 11th lap, after which there were no more improvements in its lap times, indicating that the team had probably shifted to a long-run test. As a result, this would be the fastest time for the NISSAN GT-R NISMO GT500 teans and 3rd overall in the morning session.
In the middle stages of the session, Oshima in the No. 6 WAKO'S 4CR LC500 (Kazuya Oshima/Felix Rosenqvist) beat No. 23’s time with a lap of 1’38.154. Then, Nakajima in the No. 36 au TOM'S LC500 (Kazuki Nakajima/Yuhi Sekiguchi) bettered that with a 1’37.610, being the first to break the 1’38 barrier. This would be the fastest time of the morning session. The No. 38 ZENT CERUMO LC500 (Yuji Tachikawa/Hiroaki Ishiura) scored the fourth fastest time, putting three LEXUS LC500 machines in the top four. The fastest NSX-GT car was the No. 8 ARTA NSX-GT (Tomoki Nojiri/Takuya Izawa) finishing in 5th position.

For the Honda NSX-GT that have scored 1-2 finishes in three rounds already this season, this seemed to be an unexpectedly poor showing. However, Project Leader Masahiro Saeki in charge of overall development at HRD Sakura, Honda R&D Co., Ltd. showed little concern about the times, saying, “Since this is the last Official Test of the season, it seems that the individual teams are trying set-ups they haven’t tried before, so the times aren’t really relevant.” About the test situation with the NSX-GT teams, Saeki then added, “The main objective now selecting tires, so the teams are mostly doing long-run tests.” He went on to talk about the scenario for the coming final two rounds of the series, saying, “It would be great if we got consecutive wins at AUTOPOLIS and MOTEGI, but that may be hard. So, we mainly want to get as many points as possible at AUTOPOLIS so we can return here (to MOTEGI for the final round) in as good a position as we can.”

 

 

The 2-hour Session 4 began at 1:30. With more blue sky overhead at start time, the air temperature stood at 24℃ and the track surface temperature had risen to 31℃.
With the teams mainly focused on long-run tests, there was little change in the lap time order set in the early stages of the session. In the end, the fastest time was the 1’38.814 lap recorded by Rosenqvist in the No. 6 WAKO'S 4CR LC500. Hirakawa in the No. 1 KeePer TOM'S LC500 (Ryo Hirakawa/Nick Cassidy) was second fastest with a time of 1’38.942, thus giving LC500 teams a 1-2 finish as in the morning session. Over the two days of testing, the time recorded in the morning session by the au TOM'S LC500 was the fastest overall. Third fastest was the No. 16 MOTUL MUGEN NSX-GT (Hideki Mutoh/Daisuke Nakajima), Mutoh’s 1’39.658 lap. This was the fastest time for an NSX-GT car running on Yokohama tires.

 

 

The No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Jenson Button) that will go into the next race, Round 7 at AUTOPOLIS as the season point leader, suffered machine trouble and spent the early stages of the morning session in the pit, managing only a 12-place time during Yamamoto’s drive. In the afternoon session, Button did most of the driving, recording only an inconspicuous 8th-place time. Chief Engineer Hitoshi Iyoki commented: “Normally we would be testing carrying no weight handicap, but this time we were carrying various data-collecting instruments that make the car heavier than normal. Even though we would normally be able to take out the handicap weights, because of the need to consider the machine balance, it isn’t simply a matter of off-loading the weights. So, we are thinking about the balance when the machine is lighter but, honestly speaking, we still haven’t gotten the best settings.” It will be a test of the skills of the NSX-GT teams and the Honda staff to see how they use the data gathered here at the MOTEGI tests to benefit in Round 7 at AUTOPOLIS and in the final round at MOTEGI.

 

   

 

 

 

In the GT300 class, the No. 0 GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG (Nobuteru Taniguchi/Tatsuya Kataoka) had the top time of 1’47.391 in the morning session. On this day, Taniguchi didn’t participate, so Kataoka drove alone for the four hours of tests. Filling out the top three were the No. 7 D'station Porsche (Tomonobu Fujii) and Hirate in the No. 31 TOYOTA PRIUS apr GT (Koki Saga/Kohei Hirate).
In the afternoon session 4, Yamauchi in the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi) got the fastest time of 1’47.939. This was followed by Miyata’s time in the No. 60 SYNTIUM LMcorsa RC F GT3 (Hiroki Yoshimoto/Ritomo Miyata) and Tsuboi’s time in the No. 25 HOPPY 86 MC (Takamitsu Matsui/Sho Tsuboi/Kazuto Kotaka).
In the GT300 class as well, most of the teams concentrated on long-run tests, so there was little change in the order of times set during the early stages. However, Miyata in the SYNTIUM LMcorsa RC F GT3 moved up from 6th position to 2nd position in the last 30 minutes of the session. At the young age of 19, he showed his strength as repeat champion in the FIA-F4 class.

The current series ranking leader, the No. 55 ARTA BMW M6 GT3 (Shinichi Takagi/Sean Walkinshaw), only managed best times of 7th in the morning and 14th in the afternoon, and overall for the two days their place was only 14th. Takagi commented: “We haven’t run any tire tests at AUTOPOLIS, so we think we will stake everything on the final round at MOTEGI, where we are said to be strong. When we began testing with no handicap weights, the machine felt very light at first, but soon I got used to it (wry smile). And, looking around us, everyone seemed to be fast, which was worrying and made us think again. We have had some good races at AUTOPOLIS, so even carrying a heavy load of handicap weight, I think we can finish among the leaders and come back to MOTEGI for the final round in good position. That is our strategy, or what we hope for.”

 

   

 

 

   

 

   

 

 

The tests have gone fairly well. There were still a few things we wanted to do, but we were able to get through our entire test schedule. We were able to get the fastest time of the second day and had pretty good times in each of the sessions. As a result, I have a good feeling about the machine.
But, these were still only tests. When it comes to the actual race week, I think the other teams will be ready to run faster times. Of course I think we also have room for improvement. There are two races left. In order to win the championship (only Yuhi Sekiguchi is eligible for the Drivers title) we have to win both races. That is exactly what I am going to try to do.

 

[Nobuteru] Taniguchi-san wasn’t here this time, so I ran all four hours alone. It was good practice for me (laughs). The feeling of the car wasn’t bad. But we don’t really have any clear advantage. Both at AUTOPOLIS and in the final round at MOTEGI, it will be a question of how aggressive our tire choices are. It won’t be possible to win if we only make the safe choice. We will have to choose our tires based on aggressive strategies and then set up the machine based on those choices.
But AUTOPOLIS is a track where it is hard to anticipate the weather (and track conditions). Right now we are anticipating that it will get colder, but since there is still time before the deadline for ordering our tires, we want to keep talking with our engineers about those decisions.

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