2024.12.07

Rd. 5 SUZUKA GF Qualifying GT500： au TOM'S GR Supra takes Pole Position to clinch a 2024 Series title before the race!

Round 5 SUZUKA Circuit : Qualifying GT500

　The official qualifying for the SUZUKA GT 300km RACE Grand Final, Round 5 of the 2024 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, took place at Suzuka circuit (1 lap 5,807m) in Mie Prefecture on December 7th (Sat.). In the GT500 class, the leaders of the Drivers standing, the No 36 au TOM'S GR Supra（Sho Tsuboi/Kenta Yamashita）won pole position to take the 2024 GT500 class Title before the race would be run. In the GT300 class, the No. 88 VENTENY Lamborghini GT3（Takashi Kogure/Yuya Motojima）won the class pole position, from which it will attempt to take a come-from-behind title win from its current 2nd position in the point standings.

 

　Postponed because of a typhoon, this season’s Round 5 at Suzuka was held in December. In order to accommodate for the December holding with its low air and track surface temperatures, this time the Q1 and Q2 official qualifying sessions were extended by five minutes to be run as 15-minute sessions, and the running order was switched to have the GT500 class qualifying held first.

　The track was opened for the start of the GT500 class Q1 qualifying session at 1:50 in the afternoon. The weather brought clear skies, and the track was dry as all had hoped. The cars devoted time at first to carefully warm up their tires before beginning their timed attachs from about the fourth lap on the track. The first to record a time of 1’46.112 was the No. 3 Niterra MOTUL Z (Mitsunori Takaboshi), but right after that the No. 100 STANLEY CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Naoki Yamamoto) ran a new course record of 1’44,099. Following this, the No. 16 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #16 (Ren Sato) also ran a time of 1’44.372 to move into 2nd position.

　However, as the session entered its final stages, the No. 17 Astemo CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi), which had run the fastest time in the official practice, here again recorded a top time of 1’43.988 to move into the lead, while also bringing the competition into the 1’43 range. But this time No. 17 was soon beaten by the series point leader, the No. 36 au TOM'S GR Supra (Kenta Yamashita), with a time of 1’43.737.

　What’s more, after the No. 24 REALIZE CORPORATION ADVAN Z (Teppei Natori) ran a time of 1’43.670 to beat the time of No. 36 and move into the lead, the No. 37 Deloitte TOM'S GR Supra (Ukyo Sasahara) recorded the 2nd fastest time of 1’43.677.

　By the end of the GT500 class Q1 session, five cars had beaten the existing course record, with four of the cars recording times in the 1’43 range. What’s more, the times of the top nine cars were closely bunched in the space of one second.

 

 

 

 

 

 

　The course opened to begin the following Q2 session at 2:48 in the afternoon. This was also a 15-minute session to compete for Pole Position. After their first lap out on the track, most cars took their 2nd and 3rd laps to carefully warm up their tires, except for car No. 100, which adopted a strategy of waiting in the pit until just seven minutes remained in the session, after which its driver Tadasuke Makino began his time attacks on his 4th lap. Delaying even longer in the pit was the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH Z (Katsumasa Chiyo), which then began its attacks from its third lap.

　The first to begin making his time attacks had been Giuliano Alesi in car No. 37. However, the result had been a time of 1’45.086 on his 8th lap. The next to begin making time attacks was the No. 12 MARELLI IMPUL Z (Kazuki Hiramine), which recorded the fastest overall times in all of the sectors of the track before being caught behind the car running in front of it in the Chicane and unfortunately spun off the track in an effort to avoid it and thus had to make another attack.

　Following this, the No. 8 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #8 (Tomoki Nojiri) ran a time of 1’44.894 on its 5th lap and then a time of 1’44.754 on its 6th lap. After this, car No. 23 succeeded in recording a time 1’43.734. Car No. 100 then beat No. 23’s time with a lap of 1’43.574, but only to have this time beaten by 0.4 sec. by the No. 14 ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra (Nirei Fukuzumi) with its time of 1’43.143 on its 5th lap to take the top spot.

Kakunoshin Ohta in car No. 17 then ran a time 1’43.220 on his 5th lap to move into 2nd position. On his 6th lap, Sho Tsuboi in car No. 36 ran a time of 1’43.271 to move into 3rd position, just as his teammate Yamashita had in Q1. In the end, the top ten cars in Q2 all recorded times in the 1’43 range, making for an extremely close high-level competition.

　Finally, the qualifying order would be determined by each team’s Combined Time from Q1 and Q2. As a result, car No. 36 won Pole Position with a Combined Time of 3’27.008. Car No. 17 finished in 2nd position with a Combined Time of 3’27.208, and No 14 took 3rd position with a time of 3’27.364. As for the top finisher in Q1, car No. 24, it finished in 4th position with a time of 3’27.605.
　Meanwhile, in Q2, car No 14 was judged to have obstructed the run of other cars by running at too slow a pace and was thus given a penalty that would drop it five places lower on the final race’s starting grid than its finishing position in the qualifying.

　With these results, the No. 36 driver pair of Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita received an additional 3 series points for finishing first in the qualifying. This gave the team a total of 77 series points, which put it out of reach for the No. 100 pair of Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino with 56 points, as well as for the following No. 38 pair of Hiroaki Ishiura/Toshiki Oyu and the No. 37 pair of Ukyo Sasahara/Giuliano Alesi for in the final race. With this, the No. 36 pair clinched the 2024 GT500 Drivers title. For Tsuboi and the TGR TEAM au TOM'S team it is their second consecutive win following last season’s. For Yamashita it is his first title since 2019.

 

 

 

Page Top