A popular fixture of the Golden Week holidays, the Super GT race at Fuji Speedway was held in the first weekend of May which opened the five consecutive national holidays. Being welcomed by fine and clear sky - Japanese people describe it as "Satsuki Bare" (meaning May Sunshine), as many as 53,100 spectators only on race day, and nearly 80,000 people in total through the weekend, visited the famous race track and fully enjoyed the high speed battle of Super GT cars, as it was the first race of the season in the eastern part of Japan.

HIS ADVAN Kondo GT-R fought for the leading position of the second group in the first qualifying session on Saturday and its best lap time, 1'35"078, was the fifth fastest in the class which was good enough for the car to proceed to the Super Lap session in the afternoon.

But J.P. de Oliveira at the wheel of the car in the decisive Super Lap session wasn't able to improve the time and had to settle for the eighth grid. As the surface temperature had dropped down almost five degrees from that of the previous session, it might have been a difficult situation for him to adapt himself to the condition change.

In the GT300 class, four ADVAN equipped cars, 'triple a' Vantage GT2, ZENT Porsche RSR, Apple K-One Shiden and Hasemi Sport Tomica Z went on to the Super Lap and the Porsche sat on the front row by taking the second in the session. The first two of these four cars were newcomers for this season and built to the FIA-GT specifications in contrast with the other two complying with the JAF-GT specifications.

The sky was clear on Sunday, as it was on the qualifying day. After the warm-up session in the early morning, a popular attraction in Super GT, called as "Circuit Safari" was held on the track and the fans enjoyed the bus tour on the circuit which gave them rare opportunities to watch the cars in motion closely. Just then, however, Kondo Racing's crew was busy working on the car to repair it before the race's starting time. The car halted on the track in the final minutes of the warm-up session, when Hironobu Yasuda was driving, because of a problem on the transmission. Thanks to the crew's exhausting efforts, HIS ADVAN Kondo GT-R was ready in time.

But the race pace of de Oliveira who drove for the first stint wasn't very good, which suggested there might be some after effects of the problem. For the race, the team took an uneven three stints strategy in which the Brazilian drove two shorter stints, the first and last, and Yasuda took charge of the longer second stint. To cover its longer distance, they chose the medium-hard compounds for the second stint but the surface temperature didn't go up as expected and it gradually dropped indeed. This meant that the medium-hard tires didn't work well and the Japanese driver had to struggle for his part of the race.

Nevertheless, the two drivers continued to make the best out of the difficult situation and eventually finished in eighth where the car started. The effort gave the team a valuable three points and now they are in sixth in the championship but the gap with the third placed team is marginal.

In contrast to the GT500 class in which the Lexus cars dominated rather quiet race in their home territory, the GT300 class provided many close battles and overtaking around the whole track from start to finish.

The stars of the early stage were ZENT Porsche RSR and 'triple a' Vantage GT2, starting from the front and second row respectively. The starting driver of the Porsche, Takeshi Tsuchiya, followed closely to the pole sitting opponent and overtook it at Coca Cola Corner from the outside to become the race leader before the end of the opening lap. On the other hand, Hiroki Yoshimoto at the wheel of 'triple a' Vantage GT2 also moved up to third on the same lap and then formed a one-two by ADVAN shoed cars by passing the second placed car at Dunlop Corner on Lap 2.

Yoshimoto continued to push hard and took over Tsuchiya's lead position on Lap 16 at Dunlop Corner again. As Yoshimoto's pace was really good, the gap with the veteran Tsuchiya gradually grew and, on Lap 30 at Hairpin Curve, the Porsche driver lost the second position to a Corolla which had been swiftly closing in with the leaders. At the same time, the race leading Aston Martin Vantage began to lose its speed because the car's handling balance was getting worse as fuel became lighter and eventually yielded to the hard pushing Corolla on Lap 31.

Now running in third, Tsuchiya came in the pit to change to his teammate Akihiro Tsuzuki on Lap 34. But, immediately after the car left the pit, Tsuzuki made a costly mistake by breaking the speed limit in the pit lane. As a result, he was given a drive-through penalty and lost a lot of ground.

Meanwhile, Yoshimoto in second came back to the pit on Lap 36 and, after changing four tires and refueling, 'triple a' Vantage GT2 resumed the race with Hideshi Matsuda at the wheel. However, once on the track, he found himself in third as one of his main rivals passed him during the pit stop. On top of this, the balance of the car wasn't improved and Matsuda's pace confirmed it.

Thus, the two early leaders, ZENT Porsche RSR and 'triple a' Vantage GT2, fell back because they lost ground mainly in the second stint. Nonetheless, the Aston Martin displayed a great battle with the pursuing WedsSport IS350 in the closing stage and eventually managed to finish in third. With Tsuchiya at the wheel again for the last stint, the ZENT-backed Porsche also made a remarkable recovery to finish the race in seventh, which was an achievement for the car's debut race.