2023 SUPER GT Round 2 Report

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Two and a half weeks after the season opener at Okayama, which was heavily affected by bad weather, the second round of the 2023 Super GT series took place at Fuji Speedway. While the Super GT has, without doubt, the largest fan base among the major Japanese domestic championships, this event in May has always attracted the most attendants in the series, as it has been held in the middle of the Golden Week holidays.

There have been various limitations on attendance due to the Covid-19 pandemic for the last few years. But now most of them are eased, and the meeting saw the biggest crowd in the recent past, 31,600 on the qualifying day and 48,600 on the race day.

The weather was fine for the two days. Since the official pre-season testing held here in March was hit by rain throughout the day, the teams needed the latest data under the dry conditions when they arrived at Fuji. So they tried to run as many laps as possible during the free practice session on May 3rd, Wednesday, in the morning before the qualifying, to fine-tune their cars’ setup for the all-important qualifying and the race on the next day.

When the practice ended, the best times from the GT500 class’s fastest to 14th were within just one second. Especially, the gaps between the cars in seventh to ninth were only a few hundredths of a second, so the battle for Q2, which was to fight for the top eight in Q1, was extremely tight.

The gaps between the leading GT300 cars were also close, but Realize Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R set the fastest time, which beat the second-placed JLOC Lamborghini GT3 by 0.4 seconds. Consequently, the expectations for the GT-R’s pole position were high, putting a certain amount of pressure on the opponents.

Realize Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R was assigned to Group B in Q1. As which group a car would join was decided by the championship table after the previous round, there were more leading competitors in Group B this time. Teppei Natori, behind the wheel of the GT-R, cleared the bar for Q2 by clocking the third fastest time in the group. Yuya Motojima in JLOC Lamborghini GT3 came in second, and these two cars went on to Q2 among the Yokohama Tire users in this group.

There were ten Yokohama-shoed cars in Group A, and six of them survived for Q2, led by Tatsuya Kataoka in GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG in second. The other five were Dobot Audi R8 LMS, Hoppy Schats GR Supra GT, Bamboo Airways Lamborghini GT3, MachSyaken Air Buster MC86 Mach-Go, and UpGarage NSX GT3, which won the season opener and therefore carried the heaviest Success Weight this time.

In Q2, Joao Paulo de Oliveira, driving Realize Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R, surpassed everyone else and secured the pole position. Surprisingly, it was the first time for the two-time GT300 champion to take the best place on the grids in this class. GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG, whose split time in Sector 3 was the fastest, ended the session in third, and JLOC Lamborghini GT3 in sixth.

Last year, two GT500 cars using Yokohama Tires delivered a front-row lockout in the Fuji round in May. So many expected a repeat of the feat, but other tire manufacturers didn’t stand still and countered Yokohama Tire, which had claimed five pole positions out of eight rounds in 2022.

Realize Corporation ADVAN Z, in the hands of Daiki Sasaki, was the third fastest in Q1, and WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra with Yuji Kunimoto behind the wheel was seventh, which meant both cars got through the fight for Q2.

In Q2, Sena Sakaguchi, who got three pole positions under his belt last year, performed well in WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra and secured the second grid. As he said later, “I lost a significant amount of time in Sector 1,” he was frustrated to be missing out on the top place on the grids, which was well within his reach. Still, it wasn’t bad to start the race from the front row. Kohei Hirate placed Realize Corporation ADVAN Z on the fifth grid.

The sky was clear with no clouds on the race day, May 4th, Thursday, and the bright sunshine streamed down on the track. As a result, many felt quite warm, and the air/track temperatures reached 21/40 degrees centigrade when the 100-laps, 450km race got underway at half past one p.m.

Looking to the early battles in the GT500 class, the car that started from the fourth grid went off the track at Turn 1 immediately after the start, and Sasaki, behind the wheel of Realize Corporation ADVAN Z, gained a position, thanks to it. Then a group of three cars, including Kunimoto in WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra running in second and Sasaki, began a close fight for second.

At Dunlop Corner, the car in third managed to pass Kunimoto, and Sasaki squeezed his car into a narrow space and got ahead of the Supra. Sasaki, now in third and followed by Kunimoto, continued at a strong pace.

When one-third of the race had passed, many GT500 cars started to head to the pit lane for their first stops. But Sasaki could extend his stint until Lap 39 without slowing down his pace, and Realize Corporation ADVAN Z was in provisional fifth when it rejoined the race after the pit stop. The car ran for 40 laps in its second stint, which was longer than most of the rivals again, and made the second and final stop with 21 laps to go.

Hirate, at the wheel of the Z, began the third stint in interim third and renewed the car’s best lap times one after another, thanks to the fresher tires than the cars around him had. He pushed hard and quickly closed in on the opponent in a second.

However, at Dunlop Corner on Lap 95, he was embroiled in a battle between the GT300 cars. As a result, he incurred heavy damage to his Z’s water radiator, resulting in retirement after limping back to the pit garage. It was so frustrating for them because the strategy worked, the pace was good, and there were only five laps left to a potential podium finish.

WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra safely finished the race without any mistakes or problems but didn’t have the pace to fight against the leading competitors. So they had to settle for 12th place, one lap behind the winner.

As for the GT300 class, the pole-sitting Realize Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R built a large gap with the others from the early stage. But it was because their main rival in this race made the first mandatory pit stop soon after the start for a strategic reason. Therefore, the GT-R fell back to third when it rejoined the race after its first stop at the end of Lap 30.

However, they got ahead of another opponent when they returned to the track after the second stop on Lap 60 and were only five seconds behind the race leader at the time. Natori, who was entrusted the car for its final stint, could immediately start to shave off the gap since his tires were fresher than the leaders. At the end of Lap 71, he reduced it to just 1.8 seconds, but the rival reacted to Narori’s chase, and a breathtaking seesaw struggle began after that. So Natori could cut the gap by 0.2 seconds on a lap, but then the opponent pushed it back by 0.1 on the next.

But the balance swung on Lap 80. The race leader lost speed when it had to give way to a GT500 car at Dunlop Corner, and Natori didn’t miss the opportunity. He instantly became tail-to-nose with the leader in the lap’s final sector and then side-by-side on the pit straight by negotiating Final Corner smartly. And, making the most of an advantage in the straight-line speed of the Nissan GT-R, Natori got ahead of the opponent at Turn 1 to regain the lead position.

Their battle during the remaining laps was still intense because Natori couldn’t just pull away and was under heavy pressure from behind. But he didn’t make any mistakes until he crossed the finish line first. Thus, Realize Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R scored its first win of the season, and it was the second consecutive class victory for Yokohama Tire this year.