2024.10.20

Rd. 7 Race GT500： In a race full of upsets, the 10-position grid starter scores a big come-from-behind victory! First win of the season for the DENSO KOBELCO SARD GR Supra

　The AUTOPOLIS GT 3Hours RACE, Round 7 of the 2024 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, was held at the AUTOPOLIS Circuit (one lap 4.674 km x 3 hrs.) in Oita Prefecture on October 20. (Sun.). In a race full of upsets, including four Safety Car interventions, the GT500 class race saw the No. 39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD GR Supra (Yuhi Sekiguchi/Yuichi Nakayama) come from a 10th position grid start to take its first win of the season. In the GT300 class, the #No. 88 VENTENY Lamborghini GT3 (Takashi Kogure/Yuya Motojima) move up from a 15th position grid start to claim its second win of the season.

 

 

 

 

 

　Prior to the Round 7 final race, one Parade Lap was led by five motorcycles and two patrol cars of the Oita Prefectural Police presenting a Traffic Safety Awareness message for the gathered SUPER GT fans at AUTOPOLIS. That led directly into a Formation Lap leading directly into the start of the long 3-Hour Race at 1:26 in the afternoon.

　Taking the lead from the start was the Pole-sitting No. 24 REALIZE CORPORATION ADVAN Z (Tsugio Matsuda/Teppei Natori). Behind the leader came the 3rd-position grid starting No. 14 ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra (Kazuya Oshima/Nirei Fukuzumi), which pulled up alongside the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH Z (Katsumasa Chiyo/Ronnie Quintarelli) ahead of it entering the Nakayama Seimitsu Corner (first corner) and passed it to move into 2nd position. But, not to be beaten so easily, car No. 23 came back on the 2nd lap to pass it back on the and regain 2nd position and give chase to the leading car No. 24, and catch it on the 2nd Hairpin Turn of the 12th lap to take the lead and immediately began opening up its lead over the pack.

　Meanwhile, No. 14 was passed on the 6th lap by the No. 17 Astemo CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi / Kakunoshin Ohta) and thus dropped to 4th position, after which it was also passed by the No. 39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD GR Supra (Yuhi Sekiguchi/Yuichi Nakayama) on the 21st lap. This car No. 39 had started the race from the difficult position of 10th on the grid. Nonetheless, the starting driver, Sekiguchi, put up a determined fight to progress forward by two positions on the first lap into 8th place, after which he moved into 7th place on the third lap and then into 6th place on the 13th lap.

　Then, the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi), apparently suffering from machine trouble, pulled off the track at the Hitachi Astemo corner (first Hairpin) on the 23rd lap and came to a stop at trackside. Just as the leaders were entering the 24th lap of the race, the Safety Car (SC) was called in to control the race in what would be its first entry of the day.

　When the SC left the track on the 28th lap, the race was restarted on the 29th lap. It was at this point that cars No. 14, No. 3, and No. 12 returned to the pit for their first refueling. The first to complete this pit work was car No. 3, followed by No. 12 and No. 14 respectively returning to the race. Taking this as a cue, the other cars began returning to the pit for their first refueling stop, including the leading car No. 23 on the 33rd lap, followed by cars No. 24, No. 39 and No. 36 on the 34th lap, and then cars No. 17 and No. 100 on the 35th lap and No. 16 on the 36th lap.

 

 

 

 

 

 

　It was on the 38th lap that an accident occurred just before the 100R curve, where cars No. 17 and No. 14 collided with each other. Running on the out-side, car No. 17 was pushed off the track and across the gravel and final hit the guard rail. This accident brought out the Safety Car for the second time in the race.

　At this point in the race, car No. 23 held the lead. The No. 3 Niterra MOTUL Z (Mitsunori Takaboshi/Atsushi Miyake) car that had made an early pit stop stood in 2nd place, and in 3rd place stood the No. 12 MARELLI IMPUL Z (Kazuki Hiramine/Bertrand Baguette), which gave the Nissan Z NISMO GT500 cars a sweep of the top three positions. Behind them, the series point leader, the No. 36 au TOM'S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi/Kenta Yamashita) stood in 4th place. And behind these stood car No. 39.

　The SC left the track on the 42nd lap, and on the next lap the race was restarted. Running strongly in the lead, car No. 23 had built up a big lead of nearly 14 sec. by the 50th lap of the race. Behind it came the series point leader, car No. 36, and it was being closed in on by car No. 39, and finally in Sector 3 of the track on the 52nd lap, No. 39 succeeded in passing No. 36 to move into 4th position.

　Behind them, the No. 64 Modulo CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Takuya Izawa/Riki Okusa) had return to its pit on the 57th lap, after which the other cars began to make their 2nd pit stop with refueling. The leading car No. 23 and cars No. 12 and No. 100 made their pit stops on the 60th lap. Then, cars No. 3 and No. 39 returned to their pits on the 61st lap.

　But as it would happen, on the 61st lap car No. 64, which had been first to complete its second refueling pit stop, ran off the track at the 3rd corner and crashed head-on into the barrier. This accident brought the SC out for the third time in the race, which ended up helping cars No. 39 and No. 3 keep their time loss to a minimum, thus allowing car No. 39 to not only move ahead of car No. 3 but also put them back on track in front of car No. 23.

　The race was restarted on the 68th lap. With this, Quintarelli in No. 23 put everything he could into catching car No. 39. But Nakayama in No. 39 was not giving an inch, and after coming through the 69th lap with a lead of 0.8 sec., it continued to begin expanding its lead on No. 23 from the 70th lap.

　With No. 23 now running in 2nd place, it wasn’t long before the No. 100 STANLEY CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino) and car No. 3 closed in on its tail to stage a 3-way battle for 2nd place. Meanwhile, the leading car No. 39 was gradually expanding its margin of lead to a commanding 7.3 sec. lead over No. 23 on the 80th lap of the race.

　As this was happening, the time remaining in the 3-hour race was now less that 17 min. Then, at the Nakayama Seimitsu Corner (first corner) on the 86th lap, Miyake in car No. 3 passed car No. 100 to move into 3rd place. However, just after this a big crash occurred among the GT300 cars at the 2nd Hairpin curve. This brought out the SC for the fourth time in the race, and eventually, the 3-hour race would come to an end running behind the SC. The SC would leave the track at the final corner of the last lap of the race, leaving car No. 39 finish the race in 1st place, having run a total of 92 laps.

　For the winning No. 39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD GR Supra (Yuhi Sekiguchi/Yuichi Nakayama), this was its first win of the season. For the TGR TEAM SARD, this was its first win since Round 5 at Fuji Speedway in the 2020 season, and for Nakayama it was the same.

　Finishing 2nd was the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH Z (Katsumasa Chiyo/Ronnie Quintarelli), while 3rd place went to the No. 3 Niterra MOTUL Z (Mitsunori Takaboshi/Atsushi Miyake). The No. 100 STANLEY CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino) finished 4th as the fastest among the Honda CIVIC TYPE R-GT teams.

 

 

 

 

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