Fukuzumi delighted with first pole for two years
Nirei Fukuzumi delivered the pole-winning lap in Saturday’s pole shootout on board the ARTA Honda NSX-GT, putting he and team-mate Hiroki Otsu in an ideal position to score Honda’s first win of the season - and on the NSX’s last visit to Suzuka.
To do so, the Mugen-run team will need to avoid some of the penalties that have plagued its season so far, with the #16 car of Fukuzumi and Otsu dropping from second to third in the previous race at Fuji after illegally refuelling and changing tyres at the same time.
Speaking in the post-qualifying press conference after his first pole since the 2021 Sugo race, Fukuzumi said: “This year in SUPER GT, we changed the team structure and the performance hasn’t been bad, but we haven’t been able to get good results for quite a while, so I’m glad I was able to put it all together this time.
“I think everyone [in the team] is feeling very frustrated, so it’s nice to be able to show them something positive. The team did a great job preparing the car, and both me and Otsu-san got a lot of praise for it! I’m really happy.”
Otsu, who drove the #16 car in Q1, added: “His [Fukuzumi’s] driving is amazing. I was confident that he would be able to get pole in Q2, so I’m really glad it turned out that way. There have definitely been mistakes this year, so we need to brace ourselves again, and if we can finish the race without mistakes, I’m certain the results will follow.”
Oyu counts cost of critical Q2 mistake
On the other side of the ARTA garage, Toshiki Oyu was left to lick his wounds after running off-track exiting Degner 2 on his hot lap in Q2 at the wheel of the #8 NSX-GT. Originally steting the third-fastest time, Oyu and Tomoki Nojiri, who had paced Q1, were demoted to seventh on the grid as Oyu was deemed to have exceeded track limits.
“It was definitely possible to do a lap in the 1m45s,” said Oyu, whose deleted lap was a 1m46.385s. “If things had gone smoothly, I’m sure I would have been on pole. It was about how far we would be ahead of the field, but I was asking for too much from the car.
“Suzuka is a tough track to overtake, and in the last few races, it feels like the NSX has not been that fast on the straights, which will make it even tougher. That said, I think we have the potential to get to the front using strategy, and I think there’s a high chance of a safety car, so even if we can’t overtake, I feel like we can still aim for a one-two [for ARTA].”
Quintarelli confident after bagging NISMO front row
Prior to Oyu losing his best lap time, four of the top five cars on the grid were Hondas. The exception was the Nissan of Ronnie Quintarelli, who defied his #23 NISMO Z’s 50kg success handicap to line up second behind Fukuzumi.
Despite the frustration of narrowly missing pole, the Italian driver was satisfied at the team’s recovery, having struggled in the previous race at Fuji, the first using a new chassis following the huge crash that left Tsugio Matsuda in hospital after the previous Suzuka race.
“The new chassis in Fuji didn’t feel so good,” said Quintarelli. “We had to adjust something because it was not the same feeling as the previous chassis. But the changes we made for this weekend seem to be working well, so we are happy. The tyre compound we chose for qualifying was also working well in the hot conditions.
“In the first stint we will have to be careful to manage everything. We will have to try and adjust the set-up to be kinder on the tyres. We have a lot of Hondas around us, but we can be confident for sure. The good thing is that Tsugio is back, he did a great Q1, because we both need to be competitive. It seems like his confidence is back, which is good to see.”
Subaru’s Yamauchi breaks GT300 pole record
The big news in GT300 qualifying was Hideki Yamauchi scoring his 14th career pole position for Subaru, giving him the outright record. Fittingly, his nearest rival in Q2 was one of the drivers with whom he had been tied on 13 poles, K-tunes Lexus man Shinichi Takagi, albeit more than half a second back in a truly dominant performance by Yamauchi.
“I’m super-happy to have broken this record,” said Yamauchi, who shares the works Subaru BRZ with Takuto Iguchi. “After winning the All-Japan F3 title in 2008 [in the National Class], there was a two-year period when I couldn’t race, then I came back, got this package and I was able to get this record. To get this record after so many difficult experiences in the past makes me really happy, and I’m delighted I could do it with everyone at Subaru.”
Iguchi added: “It looked like we were comfortable, but the gap [between Yamauchi and the rest in practice] made me nervous for Q1, so I’m glad I could drive well. But Yamauchi’s speed was amazing, and I’m grateful to be partnered with such a great driver.”
Merhi unable to extract LeMans Audi’s potential
Further down the grid, Roberto Merhi could only manage the 11th fastest-time in Q2 in the Team LeMans Audi R8 LMS GT3. That was despite his team-mate Yoshiaki Katayama topping the times in his Q1 segment, and the Spaniard admitted that he was almost a second slower than the target time the team had established.
“We used a set of tyres that was already scrubbed [in Q2], but they only told me when I was already driving,” said Merhi. “I think that compromised my performance quite a lot. Without that, I think I could have been P3. The target lap time was 1m58.6s, but we ended up one second too slow. The Subaru is in another league… it’s almost like a GT400 car!”
Merhi and Katayama gain one grid spot after the #2 Inging Toyota lost its best lap for track limits, putting them 10th on the grid. “It will be hard obviously but we can still finish in the top five,” added Merhi. “It’s not such a bad position. We saw the [Team Studie] BMW win from quite low down on the grid in Round 3. It’s not the best position but it’s not a huge drama.”
BMW’s Spengler mesmerised by first Suzuka laps
This weekend sees the return of BMW factory racer Bruno Spengler to the Team Studie fold for the first time since the opening round of the season at Okayama. His team-mate Seiji Ara leads the standings after back-to-back podiums, meaning that the M4 GT3 is now carrying 100kg more than when Spengler last drove it, but Ara was able to escape Q1 before Spengler went 14th-fastest in Q2, which became 13th with the #2 car dropping down.
“I think I’ll remember my first laps here at Suzuka for the rest of my life!” beamed Spengler. “I heard many things about it, but experiencing it for yourself is something different. It’s already one of my favourite tracks. I didn't get that many laps in free practice, and with 100kg of ballast, I think I did the best I could do in Q2 with my experience. It was also difficult to adapt to these tyres with so few laps. You only get one lap really in qualifying.
“We are not so far behind our main opponents in the championship [the #56 Kondo Racing Nissan], so we’ll see what we can do in the race. The team is good with the strategy and I trust them fully, and I think the goal will be to be consistent, keep the tyres in a good window and be there at the end. We will push hard to score a few points.”
On whether he could feel the extra weight on board the BMW since his last SUPER GT outing, Spengler said: “The car is still well balanced, just everything is a bit slower - you have to brake earlier, the car is more sluggish on the corner exit. But the biggest difference is the tyre life, and it’s hard to say about that because we didn’t do a long run yet.”
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