2022.11.05

Rd. 8 Qualifying GT500: Makino in the STANLEY NSX-GT wins his first Pole Position with a Course Record! Cars No. 12 and No. 3 cars qualify 3rd and 4th for Sunday’s Race

Round 8 Mobility Resort Motegi：Qualifying GT500

The official qualifying sessions for the MOTEGI GT 300km RACE Grand Final of the 2022 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, was held at Mobility Resort Motegi (one lap 4,801 m) in Tochigi Prefecture on November 5 (Sat.). In the GT500 class, Makino drove the No. 100 STANLEY NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino) won his personal first Pole Position in a course record. In the GT300 class, Kimura also won his personal first pole position in the No. 55 ARTA NSX GT3 (Hideki Mutoh/Iori Kimura) with a course record time.

 

 

 

Qualifying day was blessed with clear autumn skies and air temperatures ranging from 16 to 17 degrees Celsius, meaning good conditions for the racing cars. The 10-minute Q1 qualifying session for the GT500 class started at 2:53 in the afternoon. Although the GT500 class cars usually wait until about 8 to 6 minutes remain in the qualifying sessions, on this day, perhaps because of the low track temperature, most machines took to the track as soon as the session started and began to warm up their tires 　Nonetheless, the No. 3 CRAFTSPORTS MOTUL Z (Katsumasa Chiyo) and the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL Z (Kazuki Hiramine) didn’t take to the track until only 6 minutes remained in the Q1 session. After just a single lap of warm-up, car No. 3 made its first time attack and recorded a time of 1’36.129. But just after that, the No. 100 STANLEY NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto) recorded a lap of 1’35.615 to move into the top position. Then, the No. 24 Realize corporation ADVAN Z (Daiki Sasaki) and the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto) moved into 2nd and 3rd positions respectively but failed to better No. 100’s time.
　With this, the No. 100 STANLEY NSX-GT finished at the top of Q1. Following in 2nd and 3rd positions came the No. 24 Realize corporation ADVAN Z and No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra. As for the 1st- and 2nd-ranked teams in the Drivers ranking, cars No. 3 and No. 12, both managed to move on to Q2 by qualifying 7th and 8th respectively in Q1.
　Meanwhile, the 3rd-ranked No. 17 Astemo NSX-GT (Nobuharu Matsushita) only managed to qualify in 10th position, thus failing to move on to Q2. Also, the No. 14 ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra (Kenta Yamashita), whose sole chance at a title was to win tomorrow’s race from pole position, that opportunity disappeared when it qualified 11th in Q1. As for the No. 37 KeePer TOM'S GR Supra (Ritomo Miyata), whose only chance for a title is to win Sunday’s race, the chances of that looked difficult with its qualifying position of 14th after Q1.

 

 

 

 

 

 

　Due to a Red Flag interruption of the GT300 class Q2 session, the GT500 class Q2 session started 13 minutes behind schedule at 3:44 in the afternoon. Just as Q1, it would be a 10-minute session again in Q2. Shade covered larger areas of the track by this time, which caused the track temperature to fall further to 22℃. For this reason, most of the cars went out on the track as soon as it opened for the Q2 session, but cars No. 100 (Tadasuke Makino) and No. 12 (Bertrand Baguette) waited until there were 8 minutes left in the session, and car No. 3 (Mitsunori Takaboshi) waited even longer until only 6 minutes remained to be the last entering the track.
　Car No. 3 was first to post a top time of 1’35.916 after just one warm-up lap. In the last minute of the session, car No. 19 (Sena Sakaguchi) recorded a time of 1’35.306 that beat the old course record (1’35.550) and took the top position. Then No. 12 (Bertrand Baguette) recorded a time of 1’35.752 to move up ahead of the current ranking leader, car No. 3.
Just as it looked as if No. 19 was on the way to winning its fifth pole position of the season, it was car No. 100 that came home during the checkered flag lap with a time of 1’35.194 to come from behind and grab pole position. For Makino, this was his first pole position win in SUPER GT. Considering the fact that for the No. 100 STANLEY NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino) its only chance for a title win is to win tomorrow’s race, this gave them the best possible qualifying result. Qualifying in 2nd position came the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi).
　Qualifying in 3rd and 4th positions respectively were the two top cars in the current ranking, the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL Z (Kazuki Hiramine/Bertrand Baguette) and the No. 3 CRAFTSPORTS MOTUL Z (Katsumasa Chiyo/Mitsunori Takaboshi).

 

 

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