2019.08.10

Official Test at SUGO Day 1: KEIHIN NSX-GT fastest in Morning and Afternoon Sessions. GT300 Class Top Time for SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT

Official Test at Sportsland SUGO Aug. 10 (Sat.)

Not long after the excitement of Round 5 of the SUPER GT series, attention shifted to the work at hand in the third SUPER GT Official Test of the season, held at Sportsland SUGO on beginning on August 10 (Sat.). Besides preparations for the coming Round 7 to be held at SUGO, the tests would focus on team preparations for the three rounds remaining in the last stage of the season, with test schedules to be planned for gathering data under specific race conditions regarding such factors as each team’s weight handicap, etc. Due to the shorter overall length and tight layout of the SUGO circuit that could make congestion on the track a factor inhibiting effective tests during mixed-class sessions, it was decided that the GT500 class and GT300 class cars would run in separate sessions to maximize test conditions.

 

 

 

On Day 1 off the tests, drizzling rain fell on the SUGO track from early morning and the air temperature was quite low for this time of year. Despite some fears of poor visibility due to the mist, the first session started on schedule with track condition declared wet. However, the drizzle stopped and a thick mist settled in on the circuit at about 25 minutes into the GT300 session, and deemed dangerous the Red Flag was brought out to stop the session. With this, the start of the GT500 class session was delayed until 10:05. After that the drizzling rain began again, which kept the teams’ lap times in the 1’18 – 19 sec. range. By the time the GT500-exclusive session began at 11:00 the rain had stopped and it looked as if the speed of the timed laps would increase, again a heavy mist brought out the Red Flap to stop the session at 10:27. When the session was restarted with 15 minutes remaining, the teams changed to slick tires and began recording faster times.

As a result, a fastest time of 1’11.865 was eventually recorded in this session by Tsukakoshi of the No. 17 KEIHIN NSX-GT team (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Bertrand Baguette), who commented later: “Since I knew that the afternoons session would be devoted mainly to tire testing and tomorrow’s sessions to the machine set-up, I wanted to get in as many laps as possible on the slick tires in this 15-minute session and I push hard.” Second fastest was the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Daiki Sasaki/James Rossiter) and the third fastest time was recorded by the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN LC500 (Yuji Kunimoto/Sho Tsuboi), putting one car by each maker in the top three.

 

 

 

After the morning sessions were over, the mist cleared from the sky over SUGO and from around noon the mid-summer heat returned. Because of the stoppage time in the morning sessions, an extra 25 minutes was added to the afternoon sessions for both classes.
The teams concentrated mainly on tire comparison tests in these sessions, and with stable track conditions and no accidents occurring, the teams were able to get about 70 laps on the track, with some getting as many as 80. The air and track surface temperatures on this afternoon were close to what is expected for Round 7 at Sugo, so it made the data gathered here very important.
In this session where the GT300 class was running together with the GT500 cars in the early stage, it was the Honda NSX-GT cars that ran the fastest times. Among them, the No. 64 Modulo Epson NSX-GT (Tadasuke Makino) with its relatively light load of handicap weights, and the No. 17 KEIHIN NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Bertrand Baguette) that had been fastest in the morning session, ran at a fast pace, with Baguette recording the fastest time of 1’10.634 about 40 minutes before the end of the GT500-exclusive session. The second fastest time was run by the No. 64 Modulo Epson NSX-GT, while the third fastest time went to the No. 1 RAYBRIG NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Jenson Button). This gave all three top times to NSX-GT cars. The fastest among the NISSAN GT-R NISMO GT500 cars with the fifth fastest time was the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Daiki Sasaki/James Rossiter), while the fastest of the LEXUS LC500 cars was the No. 6 WAKO'S 4CR LC500 (Kazuya Oshima/Kenta Yamashita), with the sixth fastest time.

 

 

Of the NSX-GT cars, the highest in the season standings at this point is the No. 1 RAYBRIG NSX-GT, which was the winner of last year’s SUGO round. Expressing his desire to win a second consecutive title, Yamamoto said, “SUGO has been a circuit where both myself personally and the team have always done well, so these tests are very important for us. Since we will be competing with less of a weight handicap than last year (1 kg/season point for Round 7 vs. 2 kg/point for Round 6) from the SUGO round, I think we can win. And since it is the round before the final round of the season, I know our rivals will be thinking the same way, so I hope we can use our strength there.”
The sixth fastest time went to the No. 6 WAKO'S 4CR LC500 (Kazuya Oshima/Kenta Yamashita), which was the best among the LC500 cars for the current leader in the standings by a big margin. Speaking about his team’s strategy for the three remaining rounds, No. 6’s manager Juichi Wakisaka said, “While confirming our competitiveness with our rivals, we will be thinking about the factors that will be necessary to wing the season title, and we will be going into each of the three remaining races with the intention of winning the title. We want to base the plan for the last three races on the results of the tests here at SUGO.” With this in mind, it appeared to be a good first day of tests.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the GT300 class, the morning sessions had ended with no one able to beat the fastest time of 1’23.804 recorded by the No. 48 SHOKUMOU GO&FUN GT-R (Masaki Tanaka/Taiyo Iida/Katsumasa Chiyo) just after the restart from the first Red Flag. At that time, the track had been half-wet and the time was set running on slick tires, but the driver was the C driver Chiyo, who is only competing in this test. For Chiyo it was his first time running in the GT300 class since his team won the title in 2015, and the team’s aim was to use Chiyo’s experience in driving and setting up the same 2015 model GT-R. Chiyo commented, “There were still some wet spots on the track, but it appeared like that would be the best conditions we would get, so we changed to slick tires early. I had just experienced running on a wet track at the SPA 24 Hours two weeks ago, so I was able to run with confidence.”
In the afternoon sessions where the track was dry the whole time, the fastest time of 1’18.732 that was recorded in the middle stages by the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi) went on to stand as the fastest overall. The second fastest time went to the No. 34 Modulo KENWOOD NSX GT3 (Ryo Michigami/Hiroki Otsu) and it was only these two that dipped into the 1’18 range. The third fastest time went to the No. 25 HOPPY 86 MC (Takamitsu Matsui/Kimiya Sato).

 

   

 

 

I think it is good that we not only finished with the top time but also by a larger margin over the 2nd fastest than we expected. We tested a variety of different tire compounds and the second set of tires performed well and gave us that top time. During the first half of this season we had some problems with the machine set-up, but now we have found a good direction for it and that has contributed to this top time.
We ended up spending the whole day of tests focused on the tires, but tomorrow I want to see us do some long runs and work on firming up the set-up. The next two races at Autopolis and SUGO will be very important for our team, and I think we have to go into them aiming for the wins. Of the two, Autopolis is a track that both the team and myself perform well on, so I am looking forward to it.

 

We spent all afternoon working on tire tests, and it was during the time when the track condition was good that I got the top time. Since the GT500 class cars weren’t running at that time, it was easy to get a clear lap. Because the Red Flap stoppage in the morning made the afternoon sessions longer, we were able to cover our entire schedule of tests thoroughly. So, I think this day went well.
Tomorrow we plan to be working on the set-up as we do long runs. In Round 5 at Fuji we were able to verify that the car’s performance has improved, but we still lose a lot of time in the pit, so we still want to get to the point where we can make up more time on the track.

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