HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R stages come-from-behind victory!

RAYBRIG HSV-010 GT takes podium finish with debuting Honda HSV-010 GT  

  The SUZUKA GT 300km, Round 1 of the 2010 AUTOBACS SUPER GT, was held at the Suzuka Circuit in Mie Pref. on March 21. The GT500 class was won by the No.24 HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R (Joao Paulo Lima de Oliveira/Hironobu Yasuda). In the GT300 class, victory went to the No.7 M7 MUTIARA MOTORS AMEMIYA SGC7 (Nobuteru Taniguchi/Ryo Orime). 

  The race started in a slight drizzle that made the track slippery. That led to the first big upset of the race on the 130R curve of the first lap, where the pole-starting No. 18 Weider HSV-010 (Takashi Kogure) ran off the track and dropped far back in the field.

  Racing through the confusion from 5^th place on the grid to take the lead at the end of lap one was the No. 35 MJ KRAFT SC430 driven by Kazuya Oshima. After a 10^th position start, Joao Paulo Lima de Oliveira in the No. 24 HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R was also able to move up five positions to come through the first lap in 5^th.

  Meanwhile, after dropping back to the back of the GT500 pack on lap one and pushing desperately to regain ground, Kogure in car No.18 recorded the fastest lap of the race (1 min. 55.555 sec.) on lap five. By lap 10, Kogure had recovered to join the battle for 8^th position. For Kogure and the No. 18 team the race would end on the next lap, however, as the result of a collision and crash that occurred when he, Ryo Michigami in the No.32 EPSON HSV-010 and Ralph Firman in the No.8 ARTA HSV-010 went down the straight and into the first corner lined up side-by-side. Kogure (No.18) on the inside and Firman (No.8) on the outside were sent reeling off the track in a tangle to severe crashes, while Michigami (No. 32) in the middle managed to escape with only slight damage to the front end of his HSV-010 GT. With this, two of the debuting Honda HSV-010 machines were out of the race in the early running.

  The safety car came out to slow the cars for five laps while the debris of the crash was cleared away. The race was finally re-started on the 16^th lap.

  In the chicane of the next lap, Andre Lotterer in the No. 1 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 tried to pass Richard Lyons in the No. 38 ZENT CEROMO SC430 to take 2^nd position but overshot the curve. This allowed de Oliveira in car No. 24 to move into 3^rd place and Bjorn Wirdheim in the No. 6 ENEOS SC430 to take 4^th.

  A close-fought battle would continue between these three cars until Lyons brought his No.38 car into the pit for the routine pit stop at the end of lap 23.

  On the same lap, Oshima in the leading car No. 35 also made his pit stop. His teammate Hiroaki Ishiura took the wheel for the second half of the race, but on his first lap back on the track some kind of trouble had apparently developed in his machine as he slowed to a pace where even the GT300 cars were passing him. This allowed Yuji Tachikawa in car No.38 to easily pass him into the lead.

  On his first lap out after the pit stop on lap 30, Juichi Wakisaka in car No.1 was also unable to hold a fast pace and was quickly passed by Tachikawa (No. 38) as well.

  In contrast de Oliveira in car No. 24 held off until lap 34 before bringing his car in for its pit stop. While changing drivers to teammate Hironobu Yasuda, the No. 24 team made the bold tactical move of foregoing a tire change and finished their pit stop in just 26 seconds.

  With this, after all the GT500 class machines had finished their pit stops, Yasuda in car No.24 sat in the lead, followed by car No.6 (Daisuke Ito) in 2^nd and the No.100 RAYBRIG HSV-010 (Takuya Izawa＞Naoki Yamamoto) in 3^rd. Like No.24, No.100 had also skipped a tire change to save precious pit time and gain position.

  From there on, these three leading cars continued to run at roughly the same pace lap after lap. Behind them, fierce battles for position were raging, but the three leaders sailed on to the finish without coming close to each other.

  For the No. 24 HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R (Joao Paulo Lima de Oliveira /Hironobu Yasuda) team, this was their fourth cumulative victory in Super GT competition. It also marked their second consecutive opening round victory, having won the opener at Okayama last year.

  Finishing 2^nd came the No. 6 ENEOS SC430 (Daisuke Ito/Bjorn Wirdheim), while the No. 100 RAYBRIG HSV-010 (Takuya Izawa/Naoki Yamamoto) filled out the podium by finishing 3^rd. This was an especially momentous podium finish for the No. 100 team’s Yamamoto, this being his debut race in SUPER GT. Despite being a GT rookie, Yamamoto showed exceptional skill in managing the pace on worn tires after the team’s decision to run the second half of the race with no tire change.  
 

M7 MUTIARA MOTORS AMEMIYA SGC 7 scores victory as a team

A tough survival race with repeated accidents among the leaders  

  In the GT300 race, the first upset came on the Degner Curve of lap one when the pole starting No. 7 M7 MUTIARA MOTORS AMEMIYA SGC 7 driven by Nobuteru Taniguchi ran off the track and lot several places. More upsets followed on the same curve, as the No. 43 ARTA Garaiya (Morio Nitta), No. 2 Apple•K-ONE•Shiden (Hiroki Kato) and No. 31 apr COROLLA axio (Koki Saga) got tangled in a crash that sent all three teams out of the race.

  This left the No. 11 JIMGAINER DEXCEL DUNLOP F430 (Tetsuya Tanaka) in the lead, but with the No. 33 HANKOOK PORSCHE driven by Masami Kageyama in hot pursuit, having moved up rapidly from a 12^th-place start on the class grid. On the 130R curve of the second lap, Kageyama roared past Tanaka to take the lead. Back in the pack, the positions were also changing quickly. By the time the crash in the GT500 class brought out the safety car, the lead order was No. 33 (Kageyama) in 1^st, No. 11 (Tanaka) in 2^nd, No. 86 JLOC Lamborghini RG-3 (Koji Yamanishi) in 3^rd, No. 3 HASEMI SPORT TOMICA Z (Kazuki Hoshino) in 4^th and car No. 7 (Taniguchi) filling out the top five.

  Of these, Hoshino in car No. 3 returned for the routine pit stop in the lap after the safety car departed and the race resumed. This moved the cars behind him up one position and paved the way for Taniguchi in car No. 7 to boldly overtake Yamanishi in car No. 86 from the outside on the reverse bank of lap 21. Tanaka in car No. 11 made his team’s pit stop on the following lap, which took longer than the other teams and enabled car No. 7 to move up into 2^nd position. Katsuyuki Hiranaka took over the wheel of car No. 11 after the pit stop, only to have the radiator damaged when the car’s bottom hit the track and force him out of the race.

  Running in the lead in car No. 33, Kageyama returned to the pit for his team’s routine pit stop at the end of lap 33. An unexpected amount of time was lost in the driver change, however, and the team suffered a loss of position. In contrast, team No. 7 had gained time by electing to forego a tire change in their pit stop on the 25th lap, thus giving them the lead.

  In the driver’s seat of car No.7 was Ryo Orime. He continued to push at a fast, steady pace while being careful to put as little stress as possible on his car’s worn tires and maintaining his lead all the way to the checkered.

  For the No. 7 M7 MUTIARA MOTORS AMEMIYA SGC 7 team (Nobuteru Taniguchi/Ryo Orime), this was the first Super GT victory since the Suzuka opening round of the 2008 season. Adopting a no-tire-change strategy from last season had brought the team frequent podium finishes, but this was their first win in two years.

  Finishing 2^nd was the No. 46 UP START MOLA Z (Naoki Yokomizo/Tsubasa Abe). After starting from 3^rd position on the grid, Tsubasa Abe had run off the course and lost considerable ground early in the race, but was later able to recover and regain much of it. The pit stop of No. 33 enabled the team to regain 2^nd position and keep it to the finish.

  In 3^rd place came the No.19 WedSports IS350 (Manabu Orido/Tatsuya Kataoka). In the early running a miss-choice of tires for the track condition had caused problems and led to a course run-off by Orido, but after changing to a different type of tires for the second half, teammate Kataoka was able push harder and move up to the third spot on the podium.  
 

■ Winner Comments

No.24 HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R [GT500]

Joao Paulo Lima de Oliveira: “Yesterday [in the qualifying] I made an unforgivable mistake [crash] and ruined the machine. So, I was really determined to do well today. I am very happy with this result. I want to dedicate this win to the team mechanics that worked all night getting the machine back in shape. After their work the machine was in perfect condition, and the [no-tire-change] race strategy worked perfectly too. We were able to win thanks to these efforts by everyone on the team. In the next race the car will be a bit heavier with the handicap weights [from this win], but it will be at Okayama where we won last year, so I look forward to that race.”

Hironobu Yasuda: “We finished 10^th in every [practice] session yesterday, so I still can’t believe that we won. But, at the same time I am very happy we did. What makes me happiest of all is the fact that we were able to pay back the team crew for staying up all night to repair the car. The idea to go with a no-tire-change race strategy was Manager Kondo’s suggestion after the morning practice. And it was finally decided to go with that plan just before we made our pit stop. There was some pressure after I took the wheel for the second half of the race, but I pushed the machine while watching its condition during the first half of my stint and that was able to run to the checkered at a controlled pace while watching the competition.” 

No.7 M7 MUTIARA MOTORS AMEMIYA SGC7 [GT300]

Nobuteru Taniguchi: “The question was how I was going to defend our position in front after starting from the pole position, but I wasn’t able to do it at all (laughs). So, I’m both happy and relieved that we were eventually able to win. Just after the start, there were some sections of the track that were dry and others that were wet, and I didn’t know which were which until I actually ran them. I was caught by surprise and said, “Oh no!” when I ran off the track (grimace). Our strategy was to not change tires, so I expected us to get a lead after the pit stop, but after the track surface conditions improved the machine performed very well and I was able to make it to the pit stop in the lead. That was a big relief for me.”

Ryo Orime: “Suzuka is a special circuit for me. This is where I went to racing school and this is the course I have competed on most often in SUPER GT. To be able to get a pole-to-checkered victory here has been a real confidence-builder for me. When Taniguchi-san ran off the track, I was worried because I didn’t know what the conditions were. But after that I was relieved to see the machine running at a good pace. I was able to use my experience from running several times last year on a no-tire-change race strategy, and I think I did a nearly perfect job of pushing as much as necessary while watching the margin with the machines behind me.”