2023 SUPER GT Round 8 Report

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The final round of the 2023 Super GT Series took place at Mobility Resort Motegi in Tochigi Prefecture. In this season’s last battle, the teams and drivers of the two Yokohama-shoed GT500 cars, WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra and Realize Corporation ADVAN Z, tried to turn their season-long efforts into the best possible results. As was the case in the season opener, all cars carried no Success Weight in this final round, and everyone could race on a more level playing ground, so to say. And the same applied to the GT300 class.

On the morning of November 4th, the circuit at Motegi was encompassed with a dense fog, but it cleared up in the chilly air when the official practice session got underway. The air/track temperatures were 15/20 degrees centigrade at the beginning. However, the sky gradually lightened later, and the temperatures went up to 20/30 degrees when the exclusive time for the GT300 class began. So, the sun warmed up the spectators who were watching from the sunny places.

On the track, JLOC Lamborghini GT3 was second overall in that exclusive time and the top Yokohama user. And Bamboo Airways Lamborghini GT3, run by the same JLOC team, followed in fifth overall, the second fastest in the Yokohama camp.

The weather conditions were almost unchanged from those at the end of the practice, with the air/track temperatures at 22/27 degrees, when the qualifying session started. The GT300 cars were divided into two groups, and the six cars in Group A relied on Yokohama Tire’s products. Among them, Yuya Motojima in JLOC Lamborghini GT3 was the fastest in the group and easily went through to Q2. And Igor Omura Fraga, behind the wheel of Anest Iwata Racing RC F GT3, narrowly cleared the bar to the next stage by setting the seventh fastest time.

Group B included eight Yokohama users. Four out of eight cars, UpGarage NSX GT3, Dobot Audi R8 LMS, Bamboo Airways Lamborghini GT3, and GoodSmile Hatsune Miku AMG, made their way to Q2. At the wheel of the Lamborghini, Natsu Sakaguchi looked likely to drop out in Q1 as other competitors beat his time one after another. Still, he moved up to sixth in his final qualifying attempt and went on to Q2.

In Q2, Motojima’s co-driver, Takashi Kogure, did an incredible drive in the JLOC Lamborghini. Although the pole position was snatched by one of the rivals, who desperately wanted one point for the top qualifier for their championship fight, Kogure’s time was only 0.15 seconds shy of them, which was good enough to secure the second grid. Thus, the Lamborghini sat in the front row for the start of the season finale.

In the GT500 class, Realize Corporation ADVAN Z, in the hands of Kohei Hirate, ended Q1 in fourth, 0.45 seconds behind the fastest car, and survived the fight for Q2. Daiki Sasaki also drove bravely and finished the subsequent part of the qualifying in fourth, so the car took the fourth grid on the second row.

Yuji Kunimoto in WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra couldn’t show the car’s true speed and ended Q1 in lowly 14th, failing to get through to Q2. The car setup and the tires didn’t seem suited to the track conditions, and Kunimoto vowed to fight back in the race.

Then came Sunday, November 5th. The air/track temperatures were 21/28 degrees when the 20-minute warm-up session began. Having some scattered clouds in the sky made it slightly cooler than expected. In this session for final adjustments before the race, WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra set the sixth fastest time, and Realize Corporation ADVAN Z was in ninth.

As for the GT300 class, Bamboo Airways Lamborghini GT3 was faster than any other cars in this session. UpGarage NSX GT3 and JLOC Lamborghini GT3 followed, and Realize Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R rounded out the top four, meaning that Yokohama Tire users dominated this important session just before the race. While the Realize-backed GT-R had a poor qualifying session the day before and had to settle for the 24th grid, things looked much more promising for them in the race.

As the time to start approached, a dark cloud cover began to increase over the circuit. With a chance of some rain forecasted for certain times of the day, the air/track temperatures were 22/27 degrees when the drivers went out for the Parade Run. Then, after a formation lap, the 63-lap race started.

Sasaki, the starting driver of Realize Corporation ADVAN Z, lost a position during the opening lap and was running in fifth in the early stage. Kunimoto in WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra at the start also kept up with the cars ahead of him, while he said after the race, he “struggled to keep a reasonable pace.”

After the first five laps, tiny raindrops started to fall around the pit garages, and several drivers on the track turned their car’s windscreen wipers on. The rain area was limited to the pit straight, and at that point it hadn’t yet wet the whole track surface. However, the raindrops had a certain impact on Realize Corporation ADVAN Z’s pace, and the car lost positions on Lap 9.

Sasaki dropped to tenth on the next lap and headed to the pit at the end of Lap 13. Since it was too early to do a driver change, the team sent him back to the track after changing the tires and refueling. Considering the minimum laps required for a driver, Kunimoto, behind the wheel of WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra, drove for 22 laps from the start before returning to the pit box. And they entrusted the car to Sena Sakaguchi for the remaining 41 laps, which was quite a long stint.

On Lap 44, a GT500 car and a GT300 car collided and went off the track, which caused FCY (Full Course Yellow). And when FCY was lifted, Sakaguchi made the most of it and got closer to the competition. In the final phase of the race, he was involved in a hard four-way battle with the other three cars.

With less than ten laps left, the rain returned, and some drivers visited the pit to get the wet tires, as it was heavier than before. Unlike them, however, Sakaguchi continued with the dry tires, and it was the right call. Consequently, he could perform better than his rivals and gain a few positions within the four-car group. Thus, WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra finished the race in eighth, gaining six places from the 14th grid, and earned some points in the season’s final round.

Having made the first tire change very early, Realize Corporation ADVAN Z revisited the pit after completing 40 laps. Sasaki changed to Hirate, who drove for the remainder of the race. He was one of the drivers who opted for the wet tires when the rain came back, but the extra pit stops didn’t help him earn a position after that. At the end of the day, the Z finished the race in 14th place, enduring the tricky track conditions, under which even leading cars were prone to make mistakes.

The team gave Sakaguchi the tires with a different compound from those Sasaki used. The air and track temperatures dropped because of isolated showers during his stint, but such a change in conditions might be somewhat favorable for Sakaguchi’s tires. As a result, he was able to pick up his pace and close on the nearest rivals ahead of him.

In the GT300 class, JLOC Lamborghini, starting from the second grid, led the race from the early stage. Motojima, at the wheel of the car when the race kicked off, got close to the leader when the first shower came and watched on for an opportunity. On Lap 14, he dived into the inside at Turn 3 and overtook the leader. Motojima and Lamborghini Huracan have had a respectable track record at Motegi in the first place, but the weather conditions were helpful for them this time.

He kept the position until their first pit stop on Lap 24 and then handed the car to Kogure for the race’s second half. At the stop, the team changed only two rear tires to minimize the time spent in the pit box.

Kogure was still effectively leading the race when he rejoined and started to build a gap with the rest of the field. However, as the rain returned, the car in second rapidly reduced the gap. The two cars became side-by-side on the back straight once, but Kogure managed to fend it off and defend the position. Soon after that, the rain stopped, and the track conditions improved, which helped him to expand his lead again.

JLOC Lamborghini GT3 finished the race first, and its winning margin was 7.1 seconds. It might be particularly gratifying to win in this season’s finale for JLOC because 2023 was their 30th anniversary since they started to compete in the All Japan GT Championship, the precursor of the Super GT.

Starting from the 13th grid, Dobot Audi R8 LMS came in third and scored their third podium finish of the season. Surprisingly, Realize Nissan Mechanic Challenge became the sixth finisher, gaining 18 positions from the 24th on the grids. One of the significant factors for their great leap was completing the whole race distance with only one set of tires.