2021.03.27

【Official test at Fuji: Day 1】 Tsuboi captures top time with his new team au TOM’S GR Supra! Realize Nissan Automobile Technical College GT-R fastest in GT300.

Official test at Fuji: Day 1

Second official test of the season started at Fuji Speedway for 2 days from March 27 with the season opening race of 2021 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series approaching in 2 weeks. All 15 cars in the entry list of GT500 class and 28 cars from the GT300 class, a total of 43 cars, are participating in the test and energetically running on the track as they simulate the season opener at Okayama (April 10 and 11) and the second round held here at Fuji (May 3 and 4).

 

 

 

　The 2-day test was initially scheduled with a 2 hour session each in the morning and the afternoon, however, with the weather forecast predicting a poor weather the next day, a decision was made to shorten the afternoon session of Day 2 by 1 hour and extend the end time of the morning and afternoon sessions of Day 1 by 30 minutes each to compensate the time reduction. Day 1 was granted with warm sunlights and the temperature was 12 degrees at the start of the session. Track temperature was 24 degrees. The track temperature rose to 30 degrees eventually and it provided a good condition for doing a test for Round 2 scheduled in May.
　Session 1 in the morning got suspended twice by a red flag. The second suspension happened at 45 minutes from the start was caused by a collision between Kohei Hirate in No.3 CRAFTSPORTS MOTUL GT-R and Yoshiaki Katayama driving No.6 Team LeMans Audi R8 LMS. No.6 car was able to return to the pit on its own, but No.3 car suffered damage on its left rear and had to be recovered by a car carrier. The team was able to repair the car during the lunchtime interval, but, as team manager Toshikazu Tanaka was commenting, "We will try to change all the parts we can replace, but we also need to check them throughly," they called off the afternoon session later.

　No.36 au TOM'S GR Supra (Yuhi Sekiguchi / Sho Tsuboi) and No.37 KeePer TOM'S GR Supra (Ryo Hirakawa / Sena Sakaguchi) occupied the first and second places on the timing monitor most of the morning session, however, Ronnie Quintarelli behind the wheel of No.23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R marked a top time of 1'28.192 in the final phase of the session and jumped pass the Toyota cars. No.12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Kazuki Hiramine / Nobuharu Matsushita) placed third behind No.36 car which kept the second position. The highest position taken by the Honda NSX-GT squad was fifth brought in by No.1 STANLEY NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto / Hideki Mutoh).

 

 

　In Session2, Naoki Yamamoto in No.1 STANLEY NSX-GT stood at top with 1'28.431 during the early minutes of the session and Ritomo Miyata in No.19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra, Yuji Tachikawa in No.38 ZENT GR Supra, Matsuda in No.23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R, and Bertrand Baguette driving No.17 Astemo NSX-GT followed with a lap time in the upper half of the 28 second mark. Yuichi Nakayama at the wheel of No.39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD GR Supra recorded 1'28.293 at about 30 minutes into the session which pushed him to pass No.1 car to take the top position, and the lap time eventually became the best time of mixed class running time.
　After the session moved on to the exclusive running time of each class, drivers were showing attack laps as if they were driving in an actual qualifying session, possibly because it was the last opportunity to simulate qualifying before the season opens. From there, the timing monitor started to show drastic change in the lap time. Tsuboi in No.36 au TOM'S GR Supra marked 1'27.760 during the exclusive time. Tsuboi's lap became the top time of the first day of testing. Kenta Yamashita in No.14 ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra was second with a slight gap of 0.189 sec, and the third place was taken by Baguette in No.17 Astemo NSX-GT who has scored a win at Fuji last season. Kovalainen of No.39 car could not improve the lap time and settled with fourth place. With Quintarelli in No.23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R taking the fifth place, the highest among the NISSAN GT-R NISMO GT500 squad, the top 5 of the session was shared by 3 different car models.

 

 

 

　Race start practice took place right after the Session 2 where cars lined up on the dummy grid in the order of last year's point standing and then took off for formation laps to a race start into the first corner, just like how it will be done in the real race.

 

 

 

　GT300 class also had many cars squeezed in a small time difference in both morning and afternoon sessions. Defending champion Joao Paulo de Oliveira with No.56 Realize Nissan Automobile Technical College GT-R stood on top in the morning with 1'36.476. Second and third places were also taken by GT-R GT3s, No.11 GAINER TANAX GT-R (Katsuyuki Hiranaka / Hironobu Yasuda) and No.360 RUNUP RIVAUX GT-R (Takayuki Aoki / Atsushi Tanaka / Yudai Uchida). However, the lap times of the top group were very close, and there were 6 cars in the same 36 second mark as the top car and 17 cars were within 1 second behind the top. Despite unable to run most of the morning due to a problem in the transmission, No.35 arto RC F GT3 (Sean Walkinshaw / Giuliano Alesi) was able to run 4 laps at the end.

 

 

　Early part of the afternoon session was topped by 1'37.072 marked by Takashi Kobayashi in No.18 UPGARAGE NSX GT3 with No.88 JLOC Lamborghini GT3 (Takashi Kogure / Yuya Motojima) following behind at second position. In the middle phase of the session, Yuui Tsutsumi in No.244 TAKANOKONOYU GR Supra GT, who absented the Okayama test, jumped to the top with 1'36.931, although not enough to better the lap time of No.56 car from the morning, and that became the top lap time of the afternoon session. No.30 TOYOTA GR SPORT PRIUS PHV apr GT driven by Manabu Orido and No.65 LEON PYRAMID AMG with Togo Suganami emerged to the fourth and fifth positions, respectively, but there was no change in the top 3. Afternoon session was also congested with 21 cars in 1 second gap from the top.

 

 

 

 

We were doing tire checks repeatedly in the morning to choose the tire for the race. I switched with Sekiguchi in the middle and took the wheel. We were running together with GT300 cars and I got caught up with traffic, so I was not able to get a good lap time, but the car felt good, so I could've got sufficient lap time if there was no traffic. Afternoon was opposite and we did long runs. Top time came during the GT500 exclusive time when I was attacking to see how fast I can go on in the first part of the long run. I don't think this lap time is absolute because I don't know what kind of conditions other teams were running under. But top time feels good and it was also good that this will stay in the record of No.36 car. This will be my 3rd season after I moved up to GT500, but I have not won a race yet. So my realistic target is a first win.

 

We did a lot of testing from the morning. On tires, we tested not only different compounds but also different structures. The car felt good. This result gives me very positive feeling because this is the last tire test before the season opener. But, still, I don't know if I can be fully confident for Fuji in May. The temperature range of today must be different from that of May. But, since we were able to pick the base set, I think the team will bring in a few types based on the assumed temperature range. I can't feel fully safe because I don't know what kind of conditions the rivals were running under. But it feels very good to get a top time anyways. We were able to show the strength of the team as well as the speed of the drivers.

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