2024.11.02

Rd. 8 Qualifying GT300: Strong performance by Kotaka in Q2 gives the apr LC500h GT Pole Position!

Round 8 Mobility Resort Motegi : Qualifying GT300

　The official qualifying for the MOTEGI GT 300km RACE, Round 8 of the 2024 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, was held at Mobility Resort Motegi (one lap 4,801 m) in Tochigi Prefecture on November 2nd (Sat.). It was a qualifying run in difficult conditions caused by quite a lot of rain. In the GT500 class, the No. 64 Modulo CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Takuya Izawa /Riki Okusa) took their first pole position of the season. In the GT300 class, the No. 31 apr LC500h GT (Kazuto Kotaka/Jin Nakamura) gave the LC500h its first pole position. These two cars will start from the front of their class grids for the final race tomorrow, November 3rd.

 

　Both Round 6 and Round 7 of the 2024 SUPER GT season have seen rain on Qualifying day, and the same was true for this Round 8 at Motegi, where rain fell from the morning hours. During the morning’s Official Practice, the sessions had to be stopped five times. Although the rain began to lessen around noon, it grew stronger again around the time of the start of the Official Qualifying. At 2:00 in the afternoon, the air temperature stood at 17℃ and the track surface temperature at 19℃, and the rain led to a declaration of Heavy Wet conditions when the 20-minute Q1 session started.

　 In the very slippery track conditions, there were a number of scenes of cars spinning out at places around the course like the final Victory Corner, especially in the early stages of the session before the tires were warmed up. Around the mid-point in the session, the No. 45 PONOS FERRARI 296 (Kei Cozzolino) recorded a top time of 1’58.352. Next behind this was the No. 7 Studie BMW M4 (Seiji Ara) with a time of 2’00.193. Just 12 minutes into the session, an increase in the rain brought out the Red Flag to stop the session. After waiting for the weather to improve, the session was restarted at 2:35 in the afternoon scheduled to continue for another 10 minutes.

　Perhaps because the amount of water on the track was less than before the stoppage, the cars began improving on their times one after another. Here, the No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG (Naoya Gamou) recorded a time of 1’59.102 to move into 2nd position. This was followed by the No. 52 Green Brave GR Supra GT (Hiroki Yoshida) with a time of 1’59.888 that gave it 3rd position. With just under 2 minutes remaining in the session, the No. 9 PACIFIC VSPO NAC AMG (Ryohei Sakaguchi) ran off the track and came to a stop at trackside. This brought out the Red Flag for the second time in the session, and Q1 would eventually be ended without a restart.

　With this, the holder of the top time, car No. 45, and the rest of the cars in the top 14 positions would go on to Q2 as Group 1 (Upper 14). Behind No. 45 in 2nd and 3rd positions stood cars No. 65 and No. 52. As for the No. 31 apr LC500h GT (Jin Nakamura), it managed to finish 13th for a place in this Group 1. Meanwhile, in the case of car No. 9 that had run a time of 2’2.056 that would have been good enough to place it in 14th position in Group 1, because that time had been run while the Red Flag was showing, it was disqualified, thus dropping No. 9 to 25th position. Instead, it was car No. 11 GAINER TANAX Z (Ryuichiro Tomita) that moved up to 14th position to run Q2 in Group 1.

 

 

 

 

 

　For the Group 2 (Lower15) Q2 session that began at 3:13 in the afternoon, there was still a lot of water on the track. Here again, cars were spinning out, but the session was able to continue on to the checkered flag without any Red Flag stoppages. The top finisher with a time of 1’59.532 was the No. 20 SHADE RACING GR86 GT (Katsuyuki Hiranaka). The 2nd place finisher was the No. 2 muta Racing GR86 GT (Yuui Tsutsumi), and 3rd place went to the No. 88 JLOC Lamborghini GT3 (Takashi Kogure).

　This was followed by the running of the session for the Q2 Group 1 (Upper14), which was met with lighter rain and somewhat better track conditions that seemed to lead to better attack times. In the middle of the session when the tires were warmed up, the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Hideki Yamashita) recorded a top time of 1’58.068. This was soon beaten by the No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG (Takuro Shinohara) with a time of 1’58.010, and then a faster time of 1’57.954 on its next lap.

After this, the 14 cars of Group 1 made their time attacks one after another, leading to a quick succession of changes in the times right up to the showing of the checkered flag, and in this period the time of car No. 65 was also improved on. The No. 18 UPGARAGE NSX GT3 (Shun Koide) recorded a time of 1’57.661, and in the last minute of the session, the No. 7 Studie BMW M4 (Niklas Krütten) brought its time down to 1’57.322 to emerge in top position.

　With this, it looked as if No. 7 had won Pole Position, but after that Kazuto Kotaka in the No. 31 apr LC500h GT came through with a time of 1’57.322 to beat No. 7’s time. After this, no car was able to beat this new top time, leaving car No. 31 with the fastest time in Q2.

　According to the existing regulation, when there is a declaration of WET conditions for the GT300 class qualifying (when the track is wet and the use of wet-use tires is permitted), the overall qualifying order is determined by the order of times for both Groups of Q2. For this reason, the GT300 class Pole Position for this Round 8 went to the No. 31 apr LC500h GT (Kazuto Kotaka/Jin Nakamura), which gave Kotaka his third PP, while for Nakamura and the LC500h it was the first-ever Pole Position. This also resulted in a first Pole Position for a hybrid machine since the one won by the No. 31 TOYOTA GR SPORT PRIUS PHV apr GT (Kouki Saga) in Round 6 of the 2021 season at AUTOPOLIS.

　Finishing the qualifying in 2nd and 3rd positions were the No. 7 Studie BMW M4 (Seiji Ara/Niklas Krütten) and the No. 18 UPGARAGE NSX GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi/Shun Koide) respectively. As for the Drivers ranking leaders, the No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG (Naoya Gamou/Takuro Shinohara), they will start tomorrow’s race in 4th position in the second row of the grid.

 

 

 

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