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Race Report
2020.11.08
Rd. 7 Race GT500: ARTA NSX-GT Claims Long-awaited First Victory of the Season! NSX-GT cars sweep the top five places!

Rd. 7 Race GT500: ARTA NSX-GT Claims Long-awaited First Victory of the Season! NSX-GT cars sweep the top five places!の画像

The FUJIMAKI GROUP MOTEGI GT 300km RACE, Round 7 of the 2020 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series was held on the afternoon of November 8 (Sun) at Twin Ring Motegi (one lap 4,801m x 63 laps) in Tochigi Pref. In the GT500 class, the No. 8 ARTA NSX-GT (Tomoki Nojiri/Nirei Fukuzumi) took the lead from a 2nd-position start to run away to its first win of the season. In the GT300 class, the No. 56 Realize Nissan Automobile Technical College GT-R (Kiyoto Fujinami/Joao Paulo de Oliveira) took its second win of the season.

 

□Weather:clear | Track:dry | Air temperature/Track temperature 22℃/27℃ at start; 21℃/25℃ mid-race; 20℃/23℃ at finish

 

 

■ARTA NSX-GT and Modulo NSX-GT battle for the lead in the early going

 The Formation Lap for the Round 7 race at Motegi began at 1:00 in the afternoon, leading to the start of a 63-lap race for victory. The pole position sitting No. 64 Modulo NSX-GT (Hiroki Otsu) took off to an early lead that gradually pulled away from the pack until it had a 4.635 sec. lead over the No. 8 ARTA NSX-GT (Tomoki Nojiri) in 2nd place. But with its pace gradually slowing, the No. 8 ARTA NSX-GT was able to begin closing the gap, to 3.277 sec. by the 5th lap and 2.414 sec. by the 7th lap. Finally, by the 9th lap the two cars were nose-to-tail.

 

 Then on the 10th lap, Nojiri in car No. 8 got past No. 64 at the first corner on the inside to take the lead. From there, No. 8 pulled away quickly, opening up a big lead of 10.304 sec. by the end of the 20th lap. No. 8 made its routine pit stop on the 23rd lap and changed drivers to Nirei Fukuzumi for the second stint. As for No. 64, it was also caught and passed by the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX-GT (Tadasuke Makino) on inside of the 90-degree corner of the 12th lap, dropping it to 3rd position. Then on the 90-degree corner of the 21st lap it was passed on the outside by the No. 38 ZENT GR Supra (Yuji Tachikawa) that had started the race from 6th position on the grid. After that, No. 64 quickly made its pit stop on the same 23rd lap as the leading No. 8 had.

 

 

 Shortly after these two NSX-GT cars had entered the pits, the No. 5 MACH5G GTNET MC86 MACHSYAKEN developed machine trouble and came to a stop at trackside, which brought out the Safety Car until it could be recovered. This caused the pit lane to be closed down until the 27th lap of the race. This gave the cars No. 8 and No. 64, which had meanwhile finished their pit work, a big advantage over their rivals for the second half of the race. At this point car No. 100 was running in the lead, followed by car No. 38, the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Ronnie Quintarelli), the No. 17 KEIHIN NSX-GT (Bertrand Baguette) and the No. 37 KeePer TOM'S GR Supra (Kenta Yamashita).

 

 When the Safety Car withdrew on the 28th lap the race was restarted on the 29th lap. Immediately cars No. 38, No. 23, No. 17 and No. 37 made their pit stops in quick succession. Car No. 100 also made its pit stop on the next lap.

 

 

■ARTA NSX-GT takes a runaway victory! 5th-place finisher KEIHIN NSX-GT leads the title race

 By the time all of the GT500 cars had finished their pit stops, the No. 8 ARTA NSX-GT (Fukuzumi) was in the lead again with the No. 64 Modulo NSX-GT (Izawa) following in 2nd place. In 3rd place came the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX-GT (Yamamoto) more than one minute behind the leaders at this point.

 

 After this, Fukuzumi in car No. 8 continued to run laps at a high pace, steadily building up a lead of 5.469 sec. over No. 64 by the 35th lap of the race and 17.420 sec. by the 45th lap. By the time the final 63rd lap of the race, that lead was up to a whopping 46.238 sec., giving the No. 8 ARTA NSX-GT its long-awaited first win of the season. For this year’s rookie Fukuzumi, it was his first win in just his seventh GT500 class race. For Nojiri, it was his fifth GT500 class win and first since Round 1 at Okayama in last year’s series.

 

 Izawa also drove on steadily to the end to finish the race in 2nd place and give the No. 64 Modulo NSX-GT its first podium finish of the season. Coming in 3rd was the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX-GT, and with this it gave the Honda NSX its first clean sweep of the podium in 13 years, since Round 5 at Sportsland Sugo in the 2007 series. What’s more, 4th place went to the No. 16 Red Bull MOTUL MUGEN NSX-GT (Hideki Mutoh/Ukyo Sasahara) and 5th place to the No. 17 KEIHIN NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Bertrand Baguette), making it a sweep of the top five places by all five Honda cars participating at the Honda home track of Motegi.

 

 

 

 Also, since both the No. 37 KeePer TOM'S GR Supra finishing 6th and the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R finishing 7th won additional series points, the Drivers ranking now sees a tight title race with the No. 17 driver pair of Tsukakoshi and Baguette (KEIHIN NSX-GT) tied for the ranking lead at 51 points with Hirakawa of the No. 37 team (KeePer TOM'S GR Supra), although the Tsukakoshi pair stand on top based on number of race wins. Also in a tie for 3rd and 4th in the ranking with 49 points each are the No. 23 pair of Matsuda and Quintarelli pair (MOTUL AUTECH GT-R) and the No. 100 pair of Yamamoto and Makino (RAYBRIG NSX-GT). Furthermore, the No. 8 pair of Nojiri and Fukuzumi (ARTA NSX-GT) has now risen to 5th place in the ranking with 48 points. In all, no less than ten teams still have a shot at the series title going into the final round at Fuji Speedway (race on Nov. 29).

 

 

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