Sasaki’s Surprise Lap Gives Kondo Racing GT500 Pole in Autopolis
At the chequered flag, the #24 Realize Corporation Advan Nissan Z of Daiki Sasaki and Kohei Hirate won the pole position for Sunday’s penultimate round of the 2022 Autobacs SUPER GT Series, the FAV Hotel Autopolis GT 300km Race.
Conditions were excellent on Saturday afternoon for the start of qualifying. Autumn may have begun for those in the northern hemisphere, but the temperatures this weekend in Kyushu were unusually high – 25°C ambient, and around 40°C surface. These summery conditions are expected to continue into the race tomorrow – and with the combination of the heat and the abrasive surface of this 4.674 kilometre circuit, could make for a very challenging race for some teams if they’ve not selected the right range of tyres.
In Practice this morning, the #16 Red Bull Motul Mugen Honda NSX-GT (Ukyo Sasahara/Toshiki Oyu) set the fastest time, and was looking like a strong contender for the pole position once Q1 started. It was therefore a surprise to the pundits – and especially Sasahara – that the Red Bull NSX finished the session 11th, below the cut line to advance to Q2. It wasn’t by much, however, as just a tenth of a second separated eighth through 12th.
As the #36 au TOM’s Toyota GR Supra of Sho Tsuboi clocked the fastest time in Q1, the other story in the session was that none of the top four teams in the GT500 Drivers’ Championship made it out to Q2. Even with Success Weight halved to just 1 kilogramme per point for this penultimate round, the top two teams are still carrying the “Stage 1” fuel flow restrictor, and any additional ballast wouldn’t be ideal around this twisting, technical circuit.
The #23 Motul Autech Z (Tsugio Matsuda/Ronnie Quintarelli) in ninth, just missed out by 0.054s. Behind them, the #12 Calsonic Impul Z (Kazuki Hiramine/Bertrand Baguette) was tenth-quickest, the championship leading #3 CraftSports Motul Z (Katsumasa Chiyo/Mitsunori Takaboshi) was 13th, and the #37 KeePer TOM’s GR Supra (Sacha Fenestraz/Ritomo Miyata) was 15th and last – punctuated with Fenestraz clipping too much of the exit kerb on the last corner of his last Q1 lap, sending him spinning out over the start/finish line.
The #17 Astemo NSX of Nobuharu Matsushita narrowly got in, rewarding the hard work of his Real Racing mechanics after he crashed at the end of practice.
Four Hondas advanced into Q2, and looked certain to earn the first pole for the new NSX-GT ‘Type S’. With teams being extra careful not to put undue stress on the tyres they may be starting on tomorrow, it took until half of the ten-minute session elapsed for all eight Q2 challengers to hit the track, due for just one flying lap.
With less than a minute left on the clock, the silver and orange #100 Stanley NSX-GT of Tadasuke Makino put together an extraordinary lap, breezing through with fastest second and third sectors to take the provisional pole with a time of 1’31.867.
Co-driver Naoki Yamamoto and the rest of the Team Kunimitsu applauded with a time that was sure to put them on pole position. None of the other cars behind them were able to break the 1 minute 32 second barrier, and the last car out on track, the #24 Realize Z of Sasaki, was nearly three-tenths down on Makino through the second sector.
But from that deficit, Sasaki put together an extraordinary final sector, smooth, precise, and stunningly quick. He gained half a second through that final sector alone, and as the last car over the line, Sasaki snatched the pole position away with a time of 1’31.679!
This was the first GT500 pole position for Kondo Racing since João Paulo de Oliveira won the pole for the 2017 Suzuka 1000km. Sasaki was his co-driver back then, and now in his ninth season as a Nissan GT500 driver, he earns his first pole position individually. This also extends a superb run of form for Yokohama tyres during qualifying, as they’ve won five poles in seven rounds.
“I really want to thank everyone,” Sasaki reflected after his maiden pole run. “The team did a really great job preparing the machine, and the people at Yokohama Tyre prepared great tyres for us. I am so grateful to everyone. Until now, car No. 19 (also running on Yokohama tyres) has won numerous pole positions, so I came to this round thinking that it was now our turn to get one, so I am really happy that we did.”
“Until now, we had finished the qualifying in second position a number of times, so with this first pole position at the age of 30, I feel like I have finally come of age,” he laughed.
Starting up front gives Sasaki, Hirate, and Kondo Racing their best chance yet to end a long winless drought in the premier class of SUPER GT. Their last GT500 win came in November 2016, in the first leg of the double-header finale at Mobility Resort Motegi (which, was previously due to take place at Autopolis until the circuit suffered earthquake damage.) This was also the last time that Sasaki won in GT500.
Yamamoto and Makino will start second in the Stanley NSX. Trailing the leading duo of Chiyo and Takaboshi by 28 points heading into the weekend, nothing less than a podium finish for Team Kunimitsu will do in order for them to jump back into title contention at Motegi next month.
The #19 WedsSport Advan GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi) may have missed out on tying the record for the most poles by a single team in one season, but they posted another strong qualifying effort, third-fastest and best of the Toyota fleet, and Koudai Tsukakoshi put the #17 Astemo NSX fourth on the grid for tomorrow’s race.
Behind them were the #14 Eneos X Prime GR Supra (Kazuya Oshima/Kenta Yamashita) in fifth, the #8 ARTA NSX-GT (Tomoki Nojiri/Nirei Fukuzumi) in sixth, and the #64 Modulo NSX-GT (Takuya Izawa/Hiroki Otsu) in seventh.
Giuliano Alesi in the #36 au TOM’s GR Supra had the support of his legendary father Jean in the TOM’s garage, but his time in Q2 was only eighth-quickest. And, due to a four-place grid penalty that Alesi Jnr earned for multiple incidents of overtaking under yellows at Sportsland Sugo two weeks ago, the #36 au Supra will drop to 12th on the starting grid – behind the Motul Z, Calsonic Z, Red Bull NSX, and the #39 Denso Kobelco SARD GR Supra (Yuhi Sekiguchi/Yuichi Nakayama).
While the battle for GT500 pole position went down to the final seconds, GT300 pole honours were decided well before the end of their session as the #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport of Takuto Iguchi and Hideki Yamauchi won their fourth pole of the season.
In the group stages of Q1, rookie Iori Kimura continued to show good qualifying pace, going fastest in Group A aboard the #55 ARTA Honda NSX GT3. The big surprise out of Group A was the #11 Gainer TanaX GT-R (Hironobu Yasuda/Keishi Ishikawa) missing the cut to advance to Q2. Yasuda’s best lap was nearly seven-tenths away from the cut line, and the team that currently sits third in points will have to come back from 24th on the grid tomorrow to score big points.
In contrast, the #10 TanaX Gainer GT-R of Riki Okusa was fastest in Group B, while Fukuoka native Iguchi fought to get the #61 Subaru BRZ into seventh, above the cut line. A mechanical issue for the #6 Team LeMans Audi R8 LMS GT3 (Yoshiaki Katayama/Roberto Merhi) prevented them from setting a time, and they’ll start from the rear of the field.
With the Subaru BRZ through to Q2, it gave Yamauchi the stage to shine once again at one of the GT300 originals’ strongest circuits.
The GT300 qualifying maestro needed just one lap to take provisional pole with a time of 1’42.796, enough to surpass the #52 Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave Toyota GR Supra of Hiroki Yoshida by just over a tenth of a second. With no other drivers able to match that pace, Yamauchi pulled his blue boxer into the garage, then waited for the seconds to tick down before finally an important pole position.
For the second consecutive year, Yamauchi and the second-generation BRZ have won four poles on the season. He’s one away from tying Kota Sasaki’s mark for the most poles in a season – five, in 2013 aboard the first-gen BRZ. And with his 12th career pole, Yamauchi is now one away from the all-time GT300 pole positions record held jointly by Sasaki and Shinichi Takagi.
Yamauchi, however, is more focused on the task at hand tomorrow, saying after qualifying: “Rather than getting the record for most pole positions, I’m more concerned about tomorrow’s race. I want us to go from here to try for the win, and to give it our all so that we can show everyone that the BRZ is a winner.”
“Everyone on the team worked hard to set up the car so well that it was a real joy to drive. I think we had a very good qualifying,” he said.”
Yamauchi and Iguchi entered the weekend 12.5 points off the top of the GT300 Drivers’ Championship table, and they’re guaranteed a point for winning pole position today. They and the R&D Sport team are attempting to become the first combination to win back-to-back GT300 titles in the history of SUPER GT.
Behind them, the #52 GreenBrave GR Supra of Yoshida and Kohta Kawaai consolidated second on the grid, giving them their first front-row start of the season.
Aiming to show that their win at Sugo wasn’t a one-off, the #2 muta Racing Toyota GR86 GT (Hiroki Katoh/Yuui Tsutsumi) qualified in a season-best third position. The team has advanced into Q2 in every round this season. This time, they entrusted Katoh with the task of advancing from Q1 in order to give young Tsutsumi a shot at the pole.
As GT300 original vehicles locked out the top three, the best GT3 car was the #88 Weibo Primez Lamborghini Huracán GT3 (Takashi Kogure/Yuya Motojima) in fourth. The #65 LEON Pyramid Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Naoya Gamou/Takuro Shinohara), which was quickest in practice, qualified in fifth, while Hideki Mutoh put the #55 ARTA NSX GT3 sixth on the grid.
Nobuteru Taniguchi returned this weekend after missing the race at Sugo due to appendicitis, and he and Tatsuya Kataoka put the #4 Goodsmile Hatsune Miku AMG seventh on the grid. Championship leaders Kiyoto Fujinami and João Paulo de Oliveira qualified their #56 Realize/Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R a strong eighth, ahead of the resurgent #25 Hoppy Schatz GR Supra (Takamitsu Matsui/Seita Nonaka) and the #7 Studie BMW M4 GT3 (Seiji Ara/Tsubasa Kondo) in ninth and tenth.
Yusuke Shiotsu was 12th fastest in the #10 TanaX GT-R, filling in for a GT World Challenge-bound Ryuichiro Tomita alongside title challenger Okusa, who enters the weekend just four points behind Fujinami and Oliveira.
Local heroes Team Mach will start in the top half of the field with the #5 Mach Syaken/Air Buster MC86 (Yusuke Tomibayashi/Reiji Hiraki) in 14th, while the newly crowned GT World Challenge Asia champions Takeshi Kimura and Kei Cozzolino will start 16th in their #9 Pacific Hololive NAC Ferrari 488 GT3.
65 laps of racing around this undulating, high-altitude circuit will determine who still has the right to fight for the SUPER GT championships. The action starts Sunday at 13:30 JST (local time) / 5:30 BST / 6:30 CEST, and 12:30 AM EDT.
Images © GTA
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