2018.10.21

Round 7 Race Press Conference

Round 7 Autopolis : Race Press Conference

No.1 KeePer TOM'S LC500

 

Besides the great effort from our entire team, I want to thank the people at Lexus and the development team at TRD, and Bridgestone for the tires. When the NSX-GT cars took the top three places in the official qualifying yesterday, I thought it would be a tough race, but in the end the race was a 1-2 finish for the TOM’S teams, and LC500 cars swept the top four places. Not only was the car fast, but our race strategy also went well, it was an important factor that we got out of the pit stop in front of the NSX-GT cars. With this result, I am happy that we will be in the competition for the title, but [for the final race] we have seen the speed of the NSX-GT cars in the qualifying, so we can’t be over-confident.

 

We can say that this has been a good season for us. I am grateful to the team and Lexus for preparing a great car for us. As a team we had some points where we needed improvement, but repeated “Kaizen” (improvement) efforts have brought to what I feel is a good position. Today, we had a goal of being able to pass car No. 100 (RAYBRIG NSX-GT) in the race, but I didn’t want to add to our risks. So, I ran safely, and our race strategy was successful. I am grateful that we are now in this position.

 

 

 

 

 

No.96 K-tunes RC F GT3

 

In yesterday’s official qualifying we weren’t able to get the performance we wanted, so I thought that winning the race was out of reach for us, but I still wanted to try for a podium finish. We were having a problem with pickup, but it seemed that the other teams were having even more trouble and Yuichi [Nakayama] succeeded in running at a high pace before the pit stop. It was especially important that we had the best pit work and together with the in-lap and out-lap before and after the stop, we were able to gain 15 seconds on the competition. The teamwork was fantastic and I want to thank everyone for that.

 

I heard that AUTOPOLIS is a track where we have to be concerned about tire wear, but I had the feeling that the tires we used for yesterday’s official practice would last a long time, so we used them in the qualifying as well. In the qualifying, the teams on Yokohama tires were fast, but they didn’t do very well at the race pace, we on Bridgestone tire were able to catch up, and that felt great in the race. When they told me on the radio to push for another five laps [before the pit stop], I was able to pick up the pace, so I felt it was OK. Eventually I was able to run eight more laps and build our margin of lead.

 

 

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