As it is the middle of October and getting deep into autumn, Super GT in Kyusyu 300km race was held at Autopolis in Hita City, Oita Prefecture.

The championship battle has become fierce in both GT500 and GT300 classes again this year. Particularly in the latter, three teams were tied for the championship leader when they headed to Autopolis.

Although the forecast said it was going to rain on Saturday afternoon when the qualifying sessions were run, the track remained dry throughout the weekend. However, the main problem was the temperature. Whereas the surface temperature was well above 30℃ last year, it was unexpectedly cool on Saturday and Sunday and, especially on Saturday, the temperature of track surfaces stayed only around 20℃.

Despite a disappointing result in the qualifying, HIS ADVAN Kondo GT-R displayed a splendid performance in Sunday's race. On the contrary to the team's usual tactics that J.P. de Oliveira drives first and Seiji Ara takes over, the Japanese was appointed as the car's starting driver this time.

After gaining one position at the start, Ara completed the opening lap within the point awarded positions, in tenth. He skillfully managed his tires in terms of wear rate and steadily moved up to sixth on Lap 28, before changing over to de Oliveira on the next lap.

The Brazilian resumed the race in eighth and passed his opponents one after another with a strong drive. Helped by the pit stops of his rivals, he was already in fourth on Lap 40, just one step away from the podium.

The closing phase after that was the real highlight of the race. HIS ADVAN Kondo GT-R was involved in a close four-way battle with three Honda NSXs. This pack included ARTA NSX which had temporarily led the middle stage of the race and still kept a good pace in this position.

The driver of the car, Takuya Izawa, was de Oliveira's archrival when they were competing in the Japanese Formula Three Championship. Izawa caught the tail of Kondo's GT-R and tried to overtake it at the entry of Turn 1 for several times. But the Brazilian was never shaken up by the move and kept his position with flawless drive.

On Lap 60 of the 65 lap race, one of the top three cars was forced to come into the pit. This promoted the GT-R driver to third and he remained in the same place when the checkered flag fell, after holding off Izawa throughout.

The ADVAN equipped cars in GT300 class also made strong showings. Although the opening phase of the race was led by Morio Nitta in the pole sitting ARTA Garaiya, soon he was forced to slow down a bit because he drove too fast in the beginning. Then Tsubasa Abe driving UP START Taisan Porsche took over the lead. He started from the ninth grid but closed in from behind in a very good pace.

But Abe's lead lasted only three laps. The new race leader was Nobuteru Taniguchi in M7 Mutiara Motors Amemiya SGC-7. Starting from the seventh grid, Taniguchi tried to gain some places at the start only to fall down to 11th after a tangle at the first corner but caught up very quickly. When Amemiya's car visited the pit on Lap 30, Abe regained the lead position for six laps until he also came in for routine pit work and then Manabu Orido's WedsSport IS350 inherited the position.

However, the car on the move was Jim gainer ADVAN F430 driven by Katsuyuki Hiranaka, which was steadily catching up the leader. The Ferrari was one of the fastest cars in official practice sessions and got the third grid in the Super Lap qualifying session. The starting driver of the car, Tetsuya Tanaka, kept his position from the start and briefly led the class after the early leaders lost their momentum. However, he spun in the wake of being lapped by a GT500 car before completing the lap he took the lead.

Immediately after the incident, Jim gainer ADVAN F430 made a scheduled pit stop and Tanaka changed to Hiranaka who displayed as brilliant performance as his elder teammate did. After resuming the race in 13th, Hiranaka quickly moved up, helped by the pit stops of his rivals, and caught the tail of Orido's IS350. Then, by Abe's scheduled pit stop, the top slot was to be contended by Orido and Hiranaka.

The battle between the two was the climax of this race. Hiranaka put pressure on Orido everywhere on the track for several laps but wasn't able to crack Orido's skillful defense. Although the situation seemed to be stuck, an opportunity for Hiranaka came when they were lapped by a GT500 car on Lap 53.

And Ferrari driver didn't miss it. He utilized a space created by the GT500 cars move and managed to overtake Orido. After that, Hiranaka gradually pulled away from the Weds Sport's driver and scored the team's first win of the season with a two second gap. He was so delightful with it because this was his first ever win in the Super GT series, too.

　[Result :3rd in the GT500 class]
"As this track is hard on tires, I concentrated on taking care of my tires while I drove. As for our strategy, we tried to reduce the amount of fuel we would put in at the pit stop because we knew our fuel consumption rate was good in the warm up session this morning.
"For the first time in a long while, I drove in the first stint. It was fun to overtake a few cars at the start but I controlled myself from Lap 2 to save my tires and concentrated on keeping a good pace through to the end of my stint.
"I realized J.P. (de Oliveira) was pushing so hard in the second half of the race because I knew the condition of our car from my own experience in the first stint. He did a really good job."