2023.06.03

Rd. 3 Qualifying GT500: Tsuboi drives the au TOM'S GR Supra to win his first pole position in the GT500 class!

Round 3 Suzuka circuit : Qualifying GT500

The qualifying for the SUZUKA GT 450km RACE, Round 3 of the 2023 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series took place at Suzuka circuit (one lap: 5,807 m) in Mie Prefecture on June 3rd (Sat). In the GT500 class, Tsuboi in the au TOM'S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi/Ritomo Miyata) won his first pole position in GT500 class. In the GT300 class, Yamauchi in the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi) was fastest and tied the record for most GT300 class pole positions. These two teams will start from the front position on their class starting grids for the race on June 4th.

 

 

 

 

As if to erase all memory of the heavy rain of the day before, the skies were clear over Suzuka Circuit for this qualifying day. Due to a prolonging of the FIA-F4 Round 3 race, the 10-minute GT500 class qualifying Q1 session began 20 minutes after its scheduled starting time at 3:58 in the afternoon.

Once again, there were differences in the decisions of the teams as to how many laps after the first lap on the track they would take for warm-up before beginning their time attacks. First, it was the No. 64 Modulo NSX-GT (Takuya Izawa) that took two warm-up laps before recording a top time of 1’45.441 that immediately beat the fastest time of the morning’s official practice. Then, the No. 24 REALIZE CORPORATION ADVAN Z (Daiki Sasaki) became the first to record a time in the 1’44 range by running a lap of 1’44.443 after just one warm-up lap, which moved it into the top spot.

Next, after two warm-up laps, the No. 39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD GR Supra (Yuhi Sekiguchi) also broke into the 1’44 range by recording a time of 1’44.881. Then, the winner of this season’s Round 1, the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH Z (Ronnie Quintarelli) made its first time attack after just one warm-up lap but fell short of the top time with a lap of 1’45.347.

In the latter stages of the session, Sena Sakaguchi in the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra, running on the same Yokohama tires as car No. 24, recorded a time of 1’44.366 that bettered the time of No. 24. This was followed by the No. 17 Astemo NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi) recording a time of 1’44.663 after three warm-up laps, and the No. 16 ARTA MUGEN NSX-GT (Nirei Fukuzumi) with a lap of 1’44.876, after which the winner of Round 2, the No. 36 au TOM'S GR Supra (Ritomo Miyata), came in with a time of 1’44.966, also after three warm-up laps.

With these results, it was car No. 19 that recorded the fastest time in the Q1 session, while No. 24 finished 2nd fastest. Third position went to car No. 17 and car No. 16 was 4th, followed by No. 39 in 5th and No. 36 in 6th position, all recording times in the 1’44 range. When all was done, the tight competition saw the top nine cars all running times within a span of one sec.

And, among the top competitors, the winner of this season’s Round 1, the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH Z (Ronnie Quintarelli), suffered the disappointment of failing to move no to Q2 by finishing a mere 0.1 sec. behind the 8th position car. Also, the only Dunlop tire user, car No. 64, failed to move on to Q2 by finishing in 10th position.

 

 

 

These results meant that just two of the tire makers, Bridgestone and Yokohama, would be competing in the GT500 qualifying Q2 session, and the difference in their respective approaches to their time attacks would be evident. The cars on Bridgestone tires would go out on the track as soon as it opened and take two or three warm-up laps before starting their time attacks, while the cars No. 19 and No. 24 on Yokohama tires waited until there were five minutes left in the session before going out on the track. And, once on the track, their strategy was to take only one warm-up lap before starting their time attacks.

First to record a timed lap of 1’44.924 after two laps of warm-up was Yuichi Nakayama in car No. 39. Then, Hiroki Otsu in car No. 16 and Nobuharu Matsushita in No. 17 took three warm-up laps before starting their time attacks and recording times of 1’44.945 and 1’45.275 respectively. Naoki Yamamoto in the No. 100 STANLEY NSX-GT also took three warm-up laps before recording a time of 1’44.763, while Sho Tsuboi in car No. 36 bettered that with a time of 1’44.585, also after three warm-up laps. In contrast, Yuji Kunimoto in car No. 19 made his first time attack after just one warm-up lap, falling just short of Tsuboi’s time with a lap of 1’44.679.

However, just before the end of the session, Hirate in car No. 24, after one warm-up lap, ran a time of 1’44.320 that immediately gave him the top time. However, in the machine inspections after Q2, a violation was found in the No. 24 car that caused all of its qualifying times to be erased.

As a result, pole position went to the No. 36 au TOM'S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi/Ritomo Miyata), the winners of the previous round. For Tsuboi, it was his first pole position win in the GT500 class (following two in the GT300 class). Finishing 2nd in the qualifying was the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi), thus giving the TOYOTA GR Supra GT500 a 1-2 finish that will give these two cars both positions on the front row of the starting grid for the race. Qualifying in 3rd position was the No. 100 STANLEY NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino), which means it will start from the second row in its attempt to give the NSX-GT its first win on Honda’s home track of Suzuka since Round 3 of the 2018 season. Among the Nissan Z GT500 cars, the No. 1 MARELLI IMPUL Z (Kazuki Hiramine/Bertrand Baguette) finished the qualifying in 4th position, from where it will try to take a second straight victory for Nissan at Suzuka, following the win in Round 5 of last season here at Suzuka.

 

 

 

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