2024.11.02

Rd. 8 Qualifying GT500: Okusa is fastest in Q1! Modulo CIVIC TYPE R-GT also fastest in Combined Time, taking its first Pole Position is 4 years!

Round 8 Mobility Resort Motegi : Qualifying GT500

　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.

 

　In this season’s Round 6 and Round 7, rain has hampered the official qualifying, and in this Round 8 at MOTEGI the qualifying day once again saw continuous rain. In the morning’s Official Practice, the sessions were stopped time and again by the Red Flag, and eventually the exclusive GT500 class session had to be cancelled, all of which surely led to doubts for the GT500 teams concerning their car set-ups and tire choices.

　In the afternoon’s official qualifying as well, the track was wet throughout the sessions. For the GT300 class, these conditions led to the adoption of a format in which the qualifying order would be decided by the lap times in Q2 alone. However, for the GT500 class, the qualifying was conducted with all of the GT500 cars running together in both Q1 and Q2 in this season’s usual format, and the qualifying order would then be decided by the Combined Time of each team’s two drivers. Due to the appearance of the Red Flag in the GT300 class Q1 run prior to the GT500 session, the track wasn’t opened for the start of the 10-minute GT500 Q1 qualifying session until 2:53 in the afternoon, 25 minutes later than the scheduled time.

　Recording a top time of 1’50.445 in the early stages of Q1 was the No. 100 STANLEY CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Tadasuke Makino). This was then beaten by the No. 14 ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra (Nirei Fukuzumi) with a time of 1’49.984, the first of the day to dip below the 1’50 mark.

　It wasn’t long, however, before that time by No. 14 was also beaten by a commanding margin by Riki Okusa in the No. 64 Modulo CIVIC TYPE R-GT. It was the GT500 class rookie Okusa who had also recorded the fastest time in the morning’s Official Practice. And now, on his 5th lap, just before the end of the session, he ran the fastest times on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd sectors of the track to record a magnificent time of 1’49.255, which topped the Q1 session by 0.335 sec. This gave the team a strong position to win Pole position going into Q2.

　As for No. 14, it would also improve its time to 1’49.590 to finish 2nd fastest in Q1. Finishing 3rd in Q1 came Tomoki Nojiri in the No. 8 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #8 with a time of 1’50.215.

 

 

 

 

 

 

　In the Q2 session of the GT500 class qualifying that started at 3:49 in the afternoon, it was again car No. 64, now driven by Takuya Izawa, that recorded a top time of 1’49.994 in his first timed attack. At this point, the team’s Combined Time stood at 3’39.249. Soon, Yamamoto in car No. 100 beat Izawa’s time with a lap of 1’49.932, giving the team a Combined Time of 3’40.377 that stood them in 2nd position, but then this was also beaten by Hiroki Otsu in the No. 16 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #16 with a time of 1’49.218 that moved the team past No. 100 with a Combined Time of 3’39.945 to claim 2nd position.

Next, it was Izawa in car No. 64 that improved his time to 1’48.656 on his fourth lap to move to the top position in Q2 at that point, while also giving his team a Combined Time of 3’37.911 to increase the team’s lead over 2nd position by a large margin. Entering the final stages of Q2, Nobuharu Matsushita in car No. 8 recorded a time of 1’48.077 on his fourth timed lap. This proved to be the fastest time of Q2, but it only gave the team a Combined Time of 3’38.292, which was not enough to beat the time of No. 64.

　Eventually, Q2 ending with this order. The No. 64 Modulo CIVIC TYPE R-GT driver pair of Izawa and Okusa won Pole Position. For the Modulo Nakajima Racing team’s car No. 64 and for Izawa, this was their first Pole Position since Round 3 of the 2021 season at SUZUKA, and for Okusa it was a coveted first Pole Position in the GT500 class. Qualifying 2nd was the No. 100 STANLEY CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino), which gave the CIVIC TYPE R-GT a 1-2 finish in the qualifying for Honda at its home course of Motegi.

　As for the point leader in the Drivers ranking and last season’s GT500 champions, the No. 36 au TOM'S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi/Kenta Yamashita), while its Q1 driver, Tsuboi, had only managed to finish 8th in Q1 with a time of 1’50.910, their second driver, Yamashita, succeeded in recording the second fastest time of 1’48.178 in Q2, despite carrying a heavy 53 kg load of Success Weight. This gave the team a Combined Time of 3’39.088 that put them in 3rd position in the qualifying, which means it will start from 3rd position on the grid for tomorrow’s race.

　Meanwhile, Giuliano Alesi drove the 2nd ranked No. 37 Deloitte TOM'S GR Supra in Q1 to 9th place, while his teammate, Ukyo Sasahara, scored the 8th fastest time in Q2, which gave the team 8th position in Combined Time. As for the Nissan Z NISMO GT500 cars, the fastest finisher was the No. 12 MARELLI IMPUL Z (Kazuki Hiramione/Bertrand Baguette) which finished 10th in both Q1 and Q2, to put them in 10th place in terms of Combined Time as well.

 

 

 

Page Top