Japanese
No.1 STANLEY NSX-GT
Naoki Yamamoto
“Everyone, we’ve won! In these race conditions, we knew it was going to be a battle against the No. 19 GR Supra. As I watched Makino-san race in the first half, I kept in mind the fact that there were times when our pace was good and times when it wasn’t. I decided that it would be difficult to try to pull away from No. 19 all at once, so my strategy was to let them put wear on their tire trying to catch up and then pick up the pace once their tire performance had dropped. Fortunately, the fact that there were two FCY periods that played to our advantage, and when I pushed hard at those times, I was able to open up a lead. With this we were able to conduct the race in an ideal way for us. It was really a great race for us.”
Tadasuke Makino
“It was really good the way it turned out. In my stint during the first half, I fell back to 2nd position, which made things a bit hard for us. I was really impressed by the performance of my Teammate Yamamoto-san. As I watched (car No. 19 closing in), I was really nervous. But Yamamoto-san was truly magnificent.”
No.2 muta Racing Lotus MC
Hiroki Kato
“To win from 17th position on the starting grid is really too much to have even dreamed of (laughs). Since we had two months since the last race, we went back and reviewed the data we had, and that helped us get a better match between the machine and tires for this third race. And we got a good set-up for our Advics brake system that I think helped us be more competitive in the race. While we were also helped by the timing of the FCY periods, we also had a very good pace during the race, which I think was due to the efforts of the drivers and the team. So, I am very happy with this result.”
Ryohei Sakaguchi
“I have been racing for a long time, but I think this was a day when everything went well for our team. We came here to Motegi with some (prior) confidence, but there were mistakes in the qualifying (leaving the team in 17th place). But during the race, Kato-san’s speed in the first half, the fact that our no-tire-change strategy in our pit stop before the FCY went well, and the way our Advics brake system held out to the end were all great. When I took the checkered flag at the end to win the race, I thought there really are times like this when everything goes perfectly.”
| 4/13-14 | Round1 OKAYAMA | |
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5/03-04 | Round2 FUJI |
| 6/01-02 | Round3 SUZUKA | |
| 8/03-04 | Round4 FUJI | |
| 8/31-9/01 | Round5 SUZUKA | |
| 9/21-22 | Round6 SUGO | |
| 10/19-20 | Round7 AUTOPOLIS | |
| 11/02-03 | Round8 MOTEGI |