2024.09.22

Rd.　6 Race　GT500: Deloitte TOM'S GR Supra starts from 14th on the grid to come from behind and take a second win of the season!

　The SUGO GT 300km RACE, Round 6 of the 2024 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, was held at Sportsland SUGO (one lap: 3,586 m x 84 laps) in Miyagi Prefecture on September 22 (Sun.). The rain that had continued all through yesterday’s qualifying until noon on this race day let up enough to allow the race to start in a light drizzle. The constantly changing track conditions made for a difficult competition, and in the GT500 class, the No. 37 Deloitte TOM'S GR Supra (Ukyo Sasahara/Giuliano Alesi) came from behind to take its second win of the season. In the GT300 class, the No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG (Naoya Gamou/Takuro Shinohara) also took its second win of the season following its win in the previous round at Fuji.
*Spectators: Sept. 22 (race day, rain to cloudy) 16,000 / Sept. 21 (qualifying day / rain) 8,900

 

 

 

 

 

　Round 6 at SUGO started after a big delay due to the rain that had continued from the day before to finally start well behind schedule at 2:22 in the afternoon, led by the Safety Car. During the start procedure, the rain let up considerably, but due to the unseasonably low air temperature and little sunlight, the track remained wet. After the start, the track was expected to gradually dry, which in itself made for complex conditions for the teams. All 15 cars competing in the GT500 class started the race on wet-use tires. While watching the condition of the track, the Safety Car led for three laps before exiting to let the race begin from the 4th lap.

　Because Official Qualifying in the previous afternoon was cancelled, the starting grid order was decided by the contestants’ best times in the same day’s morning Official Practice. Starting at the front of the grid, the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Hiroaki Ishiura/Toshiki Oyu) was the first to enter the first corner and set out to build up a lead over the pack. Behind it, came the No. 36 au TOM'S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi/Kenta Yamashita) that started from 4th position and had passed the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi) and No. 14 ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra (Kazuya Oshima/Nirei Fukuzumi) that started from 3rd and 2nd positions respectively one after the other. And then, after being passed momentarily by the No. 12 MARELLI IMPUL Z (Kazuki Hiramine/Bertrand Baguette) on the 4th lap, passed it back in the Hi-point corner of the 5th lap to move into 2nd position.

　Meanwhile, Ishiura in the leading car No. 38 had built up a lead of 4 sec. by the end of the 5th lap, but Tsuboi in car No. 36 gradually began to close the gap on the leader, and finally on the 16th lap of the race he pulled up along the in-side of No. 38 at the Hi-point corner and succeeded in passing it to take over the lead. Thus, when passing became possible from the 3rd lap of the race, the No. 36 au TOM'S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi/Kenta Yamashita) that had shown an amazing dash from a 4th-position start to climb into 3rd place on the 3rd lap and then 2nd place on the 4th lap and from there run on in 2nd to the 16th lap, where it caught and passed the pole-starting No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Hiroaki Ishiura/Toshiki Oyu).

　Well behind this action, after starting from a difficult 14th position on the grid, Sasahara in the No. 37 Deloitte TOM'S GR Supra (Ukyo Sasahara/Giuliano Alesi) fell back to the very bottom position after the Safety Car left the track. But as soon as the tires that the team had chosen began to function as hoped, he started to move forward. On the 10th lap, he caught the No. 24 REALIZE CORPORATION ADVAN Z (Tsugio Matsuda/Teppei Natori) and moved back into 14th position. After this, on the 13th lap Sasahara moved up to 10th position, on the 17th lap into 7th position, into 6th position on the 22nd lap and then 4th position on the 24th lap.

　After that, there was a collision between two GT300 cars that brought out the Safety Car once again. When the race was restarted on the 32nd lap, car No. 37 caught the No. 17 Astemo CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Kakunoshin Ohta) and passed it to move into 3rd position. Then, on the 37th lap Sasahara passed the No. 14 ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra (Kazuya Oshima/Nirei Fukuzumi) and car No. 36 in quick succession to move into the lead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

　From this point, car No. 37 gradually began to build on its lead, and by the end of the 40th lap it had a 1.7 sec. lead over 2nd place, at which time a GT300 car ran off the track at the Rainbow corner of the 42nd lap. To this, Sasahara reacted immediately to return to the pit for pit work and a change of drivers, and the team succeeded in getting the second stint driver, Giuliano Alesi, back into the race without effectively losing the lead. Just after this, on 44th lap, a Full Course Yellow was declared, and the Safety Car came out for the third time on this day.

　The Safety Car left the track on the 50th lap and the race restarted. By this time the track was drying and the cars now running on slick tires began to pick up the pace. Among these, it was the leader, Alesi in car No. 37, that began to pull away from the pack at an amazingly fast pace, with which be built up a lead of 7.09 sec. by the 57th lap. By the 70th lap, Alesi’s lead had grown to 12.78 sec, and by the 76th lap it reached 22.05 sec. From there, he went on without giving the competition a chance until he completed the entire 84 laps of the race. With this, the No. 37 Deloitte TOM'S GR Supra (Ukyo Sasahara/Giuliano Alesi) claimed its second victory of the season, following the one in Round 3 at Suzuka.

　Finishing 2nd was the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Hiroaki Ishiura/Toshiki Oyu) that had come back after dropping to 10th place at one point, thanks to the aggressive charge to recover ground by the second-stint driver, Toshiki Oyu. Although Oyu had reclaimed 2nd place by the 58th lap of the race, he was unable to take the lead back from No. 37. However, he did succeed in giving the TOYOTA GR Supra GT500 its third 1-2 finish of the season after the ones in Round 1 at Okayama and Round 3 at Suzuka.

　Finishing in 3rd place as the fastest among the Nissan Z NISMO GT500 cars was the No. 12 MARELLI IMPUL Z (Kazuki Hiramine/Bertrand Baguette), thus giving the No. 12 team its first podium finish since Round 3 at Suzuka in the 2023 season. And finishing in 5th place as the fastest among the Honda CIVIC TYPE R-GT cars was the No. 100 STANLEY CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino).

　As for the leader in the Drivers point standing, car No. 36, it finished this race in 4th place, and in doing so, the Tsuboi/Yamashita driver pair maintained their top position in the standings with 49 points. Meanwhile, for this race’s winning No. 37 driver pair of Sasahara/Alesi, this victory moved them up in the ranking by a big margin to 48 points, a mere I point behind the Tsuboi pair. Standing in 3rd position in the ranking with 43 points is the No. 100 driver pair of Yamamoto/Makino.

 

 

 

 

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