2023.03.25

Official Test Fuji Speedway Day 1 – Fastest on the rainy first day is Takaboshi in the Niterra MOTUL Z! Fastest in GT300 the Studie BMW M4

Official Test Fuji Speedway Mar. 25 (Sat.)

On March 25, the second Official Test sessions of the 2023 AUTOBACS SUPER GT season got underway at Fuji Speedway, where the 2nd Round of the series May 3rd and 4th) will be held. Being the last Official Tests before the opening round of the season, many SUPER GT fans turned out for the event despite the unfortunate rain at the circuit.
Participating in these tests were all 15 GT500 class entries and 27 GT300 class entries to put their best into the test runs in preparation for the season ahead.

 

 

 

 

 

Rain fell from morning this day at Fuji Speedway. There was also fog that kept a good number of the cars from going out on the track for a while at the start of the first session.
　Among the cars that did run laps aggressively were the No. 14 ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra (Kazuya Oshima/Kenta Yamashita) and the No. 64 Modulo NSX-GT (Takuya Izawa/Kakunoshin Ohta). The drivers in these two cars were Yamashita and Ohta.
　In the early going, it was Yamashita in car No. 14 who was first to top the time board with a lap of 1’45.887. After that, the No. 16 ARTA MUGEN NSX-GT (Nirei Fukuzumi/Hiroki Otsu) beat the fastest lap with a time of 1’45.001. After 30 minutes into the session, a GT300 class car crashed at the end of the 2nd corner. This brought out the Red Flag to stop the action for about 15 minutes.
　After that, the fog cleared and restored a clear view of the track, allowing the cars to improve on their times. It was here that the two Nissan Z GT500 machines running on Michelin tires, the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH Z (Tsugio Matsuda/Ronnie Quintarelli) and the No. 3 Niterra MOTUL Z (Katsumasa Chiyo/Mitsunori Takaboshi) competed for the top spot, with car No. 23 coming out on top with a lap of 1’41.106. Seeing the dominance of these two Z machines in the rain at Sportsland SUGO in Round 6 of last year’s series, the other tire makers got to work and prepared wet-use tire with new groove patterns in time for these tests at Fuji Speedway.
　Thanks to these efforts, in the latter stages of the session, Yamashita in the No. 14 GR Supra on Bridgestone tires came out on top with a time of 1’40.533. Finishing the session 2nd and 3rd fastest were the Z cars No. 23 and No. 3, while 4th place went to the No. 36 au TOM’S GR Supra and 5th position to the No. 17 Astemo NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Nobuharu Matsushita).

　For Yamashita, who thus finished fastest in this Session 1, this was his first time driving in two months, after suffering a backbone injury in a crash in January. Afterwards, he smiled as he commented: “It was my first time driving in a while, but I didn’t feel any discomfort or doubt. I was confined to bed for a month (after the injury, and during that time) and hearing about the tests and such made me anxious, but during the next month I went to the test venue and such as I worked on the rehabilitation, so things got back to normal. I don’t feel any problems, and in fact, I feel relieved.” As for Oshima, who had run alone at the Official Test in Okayama, he commented, “I’m relieved to have my partner back.”

 

 

 

In the afternoon’s Session 2 that started at 2:00, the track remained wet but with less water on it, making for better conditions than in the morning.

 

　In the early going, the order on the timing monitor changed rapidly. The first to take the top spot was the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi). About 15 minutes after the start of the session, Sakaguchi recorded a lap of 1’36.568. This was followed by the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH Z and No. 3　Niterra MOTUL Z in 2nd and 3rd positions. In 4th position was the No. 24 Realize corporation ADVAN Z (Daiki Sasaki/Kohei Hirate), putting two cars on Michelin tires (No. 3, No. 23) and two on Yokohama tires (No. 19, No. 24) in the top four.
　However, after about 30 minutes into the session, the rain began to get heavier, until it became all-out rain. With this, the separate class running sessions had to be cancelled. So, in the end, the fastest time in the afternoon session went to the No. 3　Niterra MOTUL Z, which was also the fastest time of the entire day. The 2nd and 3rd places went to the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra and the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH Z respectively. The fastest among the Honda NSX-GT cars was the No. 100 STANLEY NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino) with a time of 1’38.016 (10th position in the afternoon session）.

 

 

 

 

 

 

　In the GT300 class Session 1 (morning), many cars reduced their laps due to the heavy rain, and the best time was a 1’56.616 lap by the No. 88 JLOC Lamborghini GT3 (Takashi Kogure/Yuya Motojima). Then, after about 30 minutes into the session, car No. 25 HOPPY Schatz GR Supra (Togo Suganami/Seita Nonaka) crashed after the second corner. As a result, the No. 25 team withdrew from the afternoon session as well.
After that, the weather improved somewhat and more cars took to the track, and about 60 minutes into the session, Gamou in the No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG (Naoya Gamou/Takuro Shinohara) recorded a top time of 1’48.912. In the latter stages, car No. 65 (Gamou) bettered it’s time to 1’47.734 and finished the session with the fastest time in the morning session. The second fastest time went to the No. 2 muta Racing GR86 GT (Yuui Tsutsumi/Hibiki Taira/Hiroki Katoh), while 3rd position went to the No. 4 GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG (Nobuteru Taniguchi/Tatsuya Kataoka) that rose from 5th position in the latter stages.
　In the afternoon’s Session 2, the track conditions had improved in the early stages, and Ara in the No. 7 Studie BMW M4 (Seiji Ara/Masataka Yanagida) recorded a top time of 1’44.502. The team’s regular second driver, Bruno Spengler, couldn’t attend and was replaced by Yanagida. Eventually, the fastest time of the day was the set by car No. 7 running on Michelin tires, meaning that as with the GT500 class the performance of the Michelin rain tires stood out. The 2nd and 3rd fastest times went to the No. 6 DOBOT Audi R8 LMS (Yoshiaki Katayama/Roberto Merhi Muntan/Seiya Jin) and the No. 18 UPGARAGE NSX GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi/Syun Koide) respectively.

 

 

 

 

I think that the teams and the makers have all brought a lot of new items this year, and I think it was good that we were able to get the top time in these wet conditions and confirm our potential. However, we saw that Yokohama has brought rain tires with a new pattern that performed well when the rain was light. And since we also saw that the other makers have made improvements, although we have confidence in our speed, I feel that we have to improve more too. We were able to make good progress with our tests, so I hope we can get through our test menu tomorrow with no trouble.

 

The track condition was wet all day today, but we were able to progress with the car’s set-up and other measures we tested, and we were able to continue working on our test menu to ensure that we can perform well in the races after the season opener. I think the Michelin tires also showed a very high level of performance in the wet conditions. The BMW M4 car is easy to drive and is fast as well. Of all the racing cars I have driven, I like this car and feel it is one of the best I know. In terms of our team organization, it is the Michelin people and the engineers that were behind me when we won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and Yanagida-san is a friend I have known since our Kart days, and he was my teammate when we competed in GT500. So, the team members are all like family to me, and I am glad to be able to work with them this season. Also, the former DTM Champion (Bruno) Spengler-san who has joined us now is a very outstanding driver. I am really lucky to be in this team environment, and it inspires me. I want to keep this good flow going tomorrow, so we will be well prepared for the season opening.

 

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