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Race Report

Victory goes to CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R
1-2 finish for the NISSAN GT-R!

The SUPER GT INTERNATIONAL SERIES MALAYSIA, Round 4 of the 2010 AUTOBACS SUPER GT, took place at the Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia on June 20. In the GT500 class, the winner was the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda/Ronnie Quintarelli). In the GT300 class race, the No. 7 M7 MUTIARA MOTORS AMEMIYA SGC7 (Nobuteru Taniguchi/Ryo Orime) took the win.

GT500 Class


The race started at 16:00. Although the start was scheduled to avoid the midday sun, it was still a hot 34 degrees C. just before the start. So, eventually the race began in nearly the same stifling heat as past races here at Sepang.
In the early stages of the GT500 class race, the pole starting No.12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R gradually opened up a lead with Tsugio Matsuda at the wheel. For this 54-lap race, the team chose a slightly early pit stop at lap 25.This turned the lead over to the competition for the time being, and when all the teams had finished their pit stops the No.100 RAYBRIG HSV-010 (Takuya Izawa) had taken the lead. But, after taking over the driver's seat of No. 12 from Matsuda, Quintarelli gave chase to Yamamoto in No.100 and caught and passed him to reclaim the lead on lap 30.

No.23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R But later, on the second turn of lap 37, Yamamoto (No. 100) ran up on the curb on the inside and his car bounced up and hit No. 12 (Quintarelli). This caused No. 12 to spin out and be passed by the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Satoshi Motoyama > Benoit Treluyer) as well, dropping it back two places. What's more, as Yamamoto in No. 100 and Treluyer in No. 23 went on to battle for the lead, Treluyer hit the tail of car No. 100 (Yamamoto).
For this accident, both No. 100 and No. 23 received drive-through penalties, which gave the lead back to No. 12 (Quintarelli) once again. After that, No. 12 raced on unchallenged to take the checkered in 1st place.
For the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda/Ronnie Quintarelli), this was the first win of the season. It is the team's first win since the final round of the 2008 season at Fuji.

 

No.18 Weider HSV-010 Finishing 2nd was No. 23. After the drive-through penalty, Treluyer (No. 23) was back in 4th position, but soon became involved in a 3-way battle with the No. 17 KEIHIN HSV-010 (Toshihiro Kaneishi > Koudai Tsukakoshi) and the No. 18 Weider HSV-010 (Loic Duval > Takashi Kogure). It wasn't long, however, before No. 17 (Tsukakoshi) got caught up in the spin-out of a GT300 machine and was knocked out of the competition. Then Kogure in No. 18 developed trouble in his cool suit that sapped his strength as the race wore on and rendered him unable to hold his position. Treluyer (No. 23) caught and passed him with two laps remaining in the race to reclaim 2nd place. He ran on that way to the end and gave the GT-R camp a 1-2 finish.
Finishing 3rd was the No. 18 Weider HSV-010 (Takashi Kogure/Loic Duval). In 4th came the No. 6 ENEOS SC430 (Daisuke Ito/ Bjorn Wirdheim). This was the top finisher among the SC430.





 

M7 MUTIARA MOTORS AMEMIYA SGC 7 grabs second win this season!
ARTA Garaiya hangs on to finish 2nd

GT300 Class




The winner in the GT300 class race was the No.7 M7 MUTIARA MOTORS AMEMIYA SGC 7. Its starting driver was Nobuteru Taniguchi. Starting from 2nd position on the grid, Taniguchi was passed by the No.33 HANKOOK PORSCHE (Masami Kageyama) on the opening lap to drop to 3rd position. On lap nine he was able to regain 2nd place by passing the No.11 JIMGAINER DIXCEL DUNLOP F430 (Tetsuya Tanaka) whose tires were losing grip. Then on lap 15 he caught and passed Kageyama in No.33 to take the lead.

No.43 ARTA Garaiya
Returning to the pit on lap 27, the No.7 team abandoned its usual no-tire-change strategy and opted to change all four tires instead. With Ryo Orime now at the wheel, No. 7 returned to the race in a tentative 6th position. By the time all the cars had finished their pit stops, No. 7 was back in the lead. In the final stages of the race the car developed suspension trouble that forced Orime to slow his pace somewhat, but by this point in the race he had a large enough margin of lead to hold out to the checkered.
For the No.7 M7 MUTIARA MOTORS AMEMIYA SGC 7 (Nobuteru Taniguchi/Ryo Orime) team this was their second win of the season following the series opener at Suzuka. At Sepang this is their fifth win, going back to the special races before the Malaysia round became an official part of the GT series.
Finishing in 2nd place was the No.43 ARTA Garaiya (Morio Nitta/Shinichi Takagi). Starting from 5th position on the class grid, starting driver Nitta pursued the top qualifiers stubbornly. Just before the pit stop, he had a brush-up with the No.2 I.M JIHAN CO.LTD･APPLE･Shiden (Hiroki Kato) that had been moving up from the very last position on the starting grid. The damage from the collision was minimum, however, and Nitta was able to bring the car in for the pit stop and turn the driver's seat over to Shinichi Takagi.

 

No.66 triple a Vantage GT2
At this point Katsuyuki Hiranaka in No.11, Mitsuhiro Kinoshita in No.33 and the No.74 COROLLA Axio apr GT (Takuto Iguchi > Yuji Kunimoto) were ahead of Takagi, but eventually Hiranaka in No.11 began to slow down, just as his teammate Tanaka had in the first half of the race. What's more, No.74 collided with No.33, forcing No.33 out of the race and giving No.74 a drive-through penalty that dropped it back in the field. This brought Takagi (No.43) up into 2nd position again. This gave the No.43 ARTA Garaiya its second consecutive 2nd-place finish following round three at Fuji.
Third place went to the No.74 COROLLA Axio apr GT (Takuto Iguchi/Yuji Kunimoto). Despite suffering from lack of tire grip, the pole starting No.11 JIMGAINER DIXCEL DUNLOP F430 Tetsuya Tanaka/Katsuyuki Hiranaka) managed to finish 4th.

 
 

Ronnie Quintarelli / Tsugio Matsuda ,  Nobuteru Taniguchi / Ryo Orime

GT500 Class Winner

No.12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R

Tsugio Matsuda
There were some uncertain factors in today's race, so I am really happy that we won. I am glad that I was able to do my job of getting a good start and then turning the wheel over to Ronnie (for the second half) in first position. Although, if I had been able to give him a bit more of a margin over the cars behind, it would have made his job easier…. Things had gone well most of the way, but near the end, the Honda machine with their advantage in tire wear rate began to close the gap. Still, Ronnie was able to get to the checkered in 1st place for us. So, this win belongs not just to me but to Ronnie and to Manager Hoshino and the team who gave us a chance to run winter tests despite the tight finances, and to the people at NISMO who supplied us with this new engine and the people at Bridgestone and everyone else involved.
Ronnie Quintarelli
I thought I could get past car No. 100 but I was beginning to lose tire grip at that point and that kept me from running at the pace I wanted. But I kept pushing, knowing that this was the key point in the race. (When No. 100 collided with another machine) I thought that there was a possibility of it happening, so I had kept a space open on the inside. But I still don't know what happened to him. To tell the truth, I didn't think we were going to win, but when I started my stint I found that neither No. 100 nor No. 23 had gotten as far ahead as I thought they would, so I kept pushing to try to catch them. Then they collided with each other. The last ten laps after that were very long for me. So much happened out there that I still can't believe that we really won. Tsugio and the team all worked very hard. Nothing can beat this feeling of having won.

GT300 Class Winner

No.7 M7 MUTIARA MOTORS AMEMIYA SGC 7

Nobuteru Taniguchi
Our team's main sponsor is a Malaysian company, so several of the country's VIPs were at the pre-race party, and we wanted to win this race, so there was a lot of pressure. That makes me all the more happy that we won this race. Or strategy had been that we wouldn't change tires if we were in the lead. The tires that the engineers chose for us were exceptionally good.
Ryo Orime
Our Malaysian sponsor MUTIARA MOTORS came out to give us their support this weekend, so I am very happy that we were able to give them this victory in return. Taniguchi-san pushed hard and brought the car back in 1st place with a lead, so things were relatively easy for me. But trouble developed in the suspensions in the last seven laps, so I had to avoid the curbing and that slowed my pace by almost 2 seconds per lap. Actually, it was a miracle that I was able to make it to the finish.

Race Results

GT500 Class
Position Car No. Machine Driver Time&Diff. Laps Tire WH
1 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R Tsugio Matsuda
Ronnie Quintarelli		 1:50'54.084 54 BS 26
2 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R Satoshi Motoyama
Benoit Treluyer		 0'13.333 54 MI 6
3 18 Weider HSV-010 Takashi Kogure
Loic Duval		 0'16.673 54 BS 48
4 6 ENEOS SC430 Daisuke Ito
Bjorn Wirdheim		 0'28.242 54 BS 64
5 100 RAYBRIG HSV-010 Takuya Izawa
Naoki Yamamoto		 0'30.809 54 BS 30
6 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430 Yuji Tachikawa
Richard Lyons		 0'54.074 54 BS 50
7 35 MJ KRAFT SC430 Hiroaki Ishiura
Kazuya Oshima		 0'55.339 54 BS 54
8 1 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 Juichi Wakisaka
Andre Lotterer		 1'07.541 54 BS 68
9 24 HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R J.P.Lima de Oliveira
Hironobu Yasuda		 1'20.339 54 YH 46
10 39 DENSO DUNLOP SARD SC430 Andre Couto
Kohei Hirate		 1'24.343 54 DL 14
11 8 ARTA HSV-010 Ralph Firman
Yuji Ide		 1Lap 53 BS 10
12 17 KEIHIN HSV-010 Toshihiro Kaneishi
Koudai Tsukakoshi		 3Laps 51 BS 28
Classified (GT500: 37 Laps)

32 EPSON HSV-010 Ryo Michigami
Yuhki Nakayama		 54Lpas 0 DL 6

 

GT300 Class
Position Car No. Machine Driver Time&Diff. Laps Tire WH
1 7 M7 MUTIARA MOTORS AMEMIYA SGC 7 Nobuteru Taniguchi
Ryo Orime		 1:52'09.593 50 YH 40
2 43 ARTA Garaiya Morio Nitta
Shinichi Takagi		 0'27.625 50 MI 40
3 74 COROLLA Axio apr GT Takuto Iguchi
Yuji Kunimoto		 0'51.346 50 MI 50
4 11 JIMGAINER DIXCEL DUNLOP F430 Tetsuya Tanaka
Katsuyuki Hiranaka		 1Lap 49 DL 18
5 3 HASEMI SPORT TOMICA Z Kazuki Hoshino
Masataka Yanagida		 1Lap 49 YH 46
6 46 UP START MOLA Z Naoki Yokomizo
Tsubasa Abe		 1Lap 49 YH 70
7 88 RIRE Lamborghini RG-3 Atsushi Yogo
Shinya Hosokawa		 1Lap 49 YH
8 31 EVANGELION RT TEST TYPE-01 apr COROLLA Koki Saga
Kosuke Matsuura		 1Lap 49 YH 16
9 19 WedsSport IS350 Manabu Orido
Tatsuya Kataoka		 1Lap 49 YH 38
10 27 NAC EISEICOM LMP Ferrari Yutaka Yamagishi
Hiroshi Koizumi		 1Lap 49 YH 10
11 87 JLOC Lamborghini RG-3 Hiroyuki Iiri
Yuya Sakamoto		 1Lap 49 YH 2
12 66 triple a Vantage GT2 Hideshi Matsuda
Hiroki Yoshimoto		 1Lap 49 YH 22
13 5 MACH GOGOGO SHAKEN408R Tetsuji Tamanaka
Haruki Kurosawa		 2Laps 48 YH 16
14 360 ISHIMATSU Kosei RUNNUP PORSCHE Atsushi Tanaka
Masahiro Matsunaga		 3Laps 47 HK
15 86 JLOC Lamborghini RG-3 Koji Yamanishi
Yuhi Sekiguchi		 4Laps 46 YH 24
16 33 HANKOOK PORSCHE Mitsuhiro Kinoshita
Masami Kageyama		 12Laps 38 HK 16
Classified (GT300: 35 Laps)

2 I.M JIHAN CO.LTD•APPLE•Shiden Hiroki Katoh
Hiroshi Hamaguchi		 17Laps 33 YH 30

365 365 ThunderAsia MT900M Melvin Choo
Tim Sugden		 22Laps 28 YH

666 BOMEX LIAN BOXSTER Junichiro Yamashita
Takamori.com		 23Laps 27 YH

 

Tire = BS:Bridgestone / DL:Dunlop / HK:Hankook / MI:Michelin / YH:Yokohama

WH = Handicap Weight (kg)

Start: 14:03'00 / Finish: 16:28'00.795

GT500 - 1'59.495 : No.23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Benoit Treluyer)
GT300 - 2'11.037 : No.3 HASEMI SPORT TOMICA Z (Masataka Yanagida)

 

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