The Malaysian round at Sepang is famous for the tropical torrid heat that is very tough for drivers, cars and tires, as the track surface temperature easily exceeds 50 degrees Celsius. However, rainy weather had been predicted for the whole race weekend this year and, on Saturday, the qualifying session was run under the overcast sky with the track temperature staying around 45 degrees Celsius or lower.

Among the ADVAN equipped cars in the GT300 class, JLOC Lamborghini GT3, ENDLESS Taisan 911, MonePa Lamborghini GT3, Green Tec & Leon SLS and S Road NDDP GT-R got into the top six after the Super Lap session.

As for the GT500 class, the pair of D'station ADVAN GT-R and WedsSport ADVAN SC430 earned their starting grids within the top ten for the first time this season.

The sun peeked out between the clouds on Sunday and it was much brighter than Saturday's weather. As a result, the race was run in the usual heat and the track temperature reached to 55 degrees Celsius on the starting grids, even though the race was set to start four p.m.

Probably because of the broken formation of the cars, there was an additional rolling lap and then the race got underway at nine minutes past four p.m. Most of the leading cars kept their grid positions during the opening lap and D'station ADVAN GT-R, with Bjorn Wirdheim at the wheel, and WedsSport ADVAN SC430 driven by Andre Couto completed the first lap in sixth and ninth respectively. However, an unexpected incident happened on the next lap.

The right rear tire of D'station ADVAN GT-R suddenly broke on the back straight when it was fighting for the position with Raybrig HSV-010 and the pieces of broken tire caused considerable damage to the car's body work. While Wirdheim managed to bring the car back to the pit, the damage was too heavy to repair in time for rejoining the race. So the team had no choice but to retire as early as at the end of Lap 2.

This incident elevated WedsSport ADVAN SC430 to seventh and Couto made steady effort to follow Raybrig HSV-010 in front of him. But, on Lap 12, he was passed by Eneos Sustina SC430, which was catching up from the back end of the grids, and fell back to eighth. After that, the Macau resident struggled to keep a good pace and lost two more positions on Lap 18. So the team decided to make the pit stop earlier than planned, on Lap 22, to change to Seiji Ara.

On Lap 28, when most of the cars completed mandatory pit stops, Ara was running in 12th. The track temperature was decreasing and he continued to drive in a consistent pace but the gap with Keihin HSV-010, which was the nearest opponent in front of him, stayed constant.

Then two cars retired from the race on Lap 45 and Ara automatically moved up to tenth. While most of the other cars' pace tumbled down in the closing stage, WedsSport ADVAN SC430 was able to go on consistently and keep the position to finish in points. After the checkered flag fell, the car finished in eighth was given a 30 second time penalty for an avoidable contact with the other car and this gave the ninth place to the WedsSport car. Thus the team finally got the first points of the season after an uphill battle.

In the GT300 class, Naoki Yokomizo in ENDLESS Taisan 911 made a very good start from the third grid and was almost able to overtake JLOC Lamborghini GT3 with Koji Yamanishi at the wheel. But Yokomizo made a costly spin at the first corner, which sent him to the back end of the field. The third place was taken over by Manabu Orido in MonePa Lamborghini GT3 and Morio Nitta in apr Hasepro Prius GT moved up to fourth after starting from the eighth grid.

Orido passed Yamanishi on Lap 3 and gained a small gap with his pursuers. Behind him, the fight for third began between Yamanishi and Hiroki Kato at the wheel of Evangelion RT Test-01 Petronas Shiden which swiftly caught up from the tenth grid start.

The two Lamborghinis were the first to make the mandatory pit stops among the leaders but both of them were hit by a problem with the air jack system at the pit stops and lost a lot of ground. The unfortunate happenings for the Lamborghini teams changed the lineup of the class leaders and gave a second chance to Yokomizo who had dropped down to the last place after spinning at the first corner of the race. Kazuki Hoshino in 'triple a' Vantage GT3 also moved up through the field despite the car had a gearbox problem in the qualifying session, which meant it had had to do the qualifying lap without its first and second gears, and had started race with a gearbox less second gear.

But it was Nobuteru Taniguchi in GSR Hatsune Miku BMW who took up the second in the closing stage of the race. The championship leading car was burdened with a heavy weight handicap plus a tighter BOP (Balance of Performance) from this meeting and, therefore, had had to settle for seventh in the qualifying session. But the team tried to go through the entire race distance with only one set of tires, which was thought to be almost impossible under the hot conditions in Sepang, to make up the deficit in the car's performance by saving time for tire change. Tatsuya Kataoka who drove for the first 18 laps and Taniguchi looked after the tires very well and were still able to keep a consistent pace throughout the race, which pushed the car up to second. Meanwhile, ENDLESS Taisan 911, now in the hands of Kyosuke Mineo, also moved up to third.

Taniguchi pushed hard and was steadily reducing the gap with the race leader but, on the final lap of the race, his BMW suddenly halted on the track! "The fuel tank was completely full when we refueled at the pit stop," said a team member but the car ran out of fuel just before the finish because the fuel consumption exceeded the team's prediction for some reason. Second place was inherited by ENDLESS Taisan 911 and the spin on the first lap was now fully recovered by their team effort.

At the last corner of the final lap, Hiroki Yoshimoto who had taken over the wheel of 'triple a' Vantage GT3 from Hoshino, managed to pass Yuhi Sekiguchi in S Road NDDP GT-R and finished the race in third. The ADVAN shoed Aston Martin and the ENDLESS backed Porsche were thought to be hot favorites in this race but things didn't go well for both of them at the beginning. So their podium finishes at the end of the day were the stories of great recovery that only unyielding spirits could make it possible.

　[Result : 2nd in the GT300 class]
"I spun at Turn 1 on the first lap but, to be honest, I don't exactly know what happened. Maybe someone hit me or something like that... Anyway, all I could do was to recover the lost positions as much as possible, so I desperately pushed until the end of my stint.

"As a result, I could move up to fifth when I handed over the car to Mineo-san but he still had to face a difficult job. I'm sorry for him about that but, at the same time, I'm so delighted to see his very strong drive which really relieved me.

"As the team and Yokohama Tire had wanted to see a good result in this race, I feel relieved that we could save the race after my spin and finish in second, even though we missed the class win that was possible."

　[Result : 3rd in the GT300 class]
"We had expected to fight for the class win here and, in fact, we were the fastest in the first practice session. But, then, a gearbox problem was discovered... We thought we would have to withdraw from the race once at least. But the team made an all-out effort to repair it and Yoshimoto got the 14th grid in the qualifying despite he couldn't use the first and second gears, so we decided to try our best with a new attitude.

"Even after the repair work, we didn't have the second gear during the race. But we still had the first and third gears and I thought I could deal with the situation by skipping the lost second gear. I started the race just hoping to finish in points but our pace was better than expected and we could even get on the podium, which we didn't think of at all. I think this third place finish is worth more than anything else. We really regretted about the third place in the last race but, this time, we are 100% happy with this one!"

"We had a tire testing session at Sepang in January and we prepared the tires for this race based on the data gathered in the session and the considerations on the unique weather conditions here in Sepang, such as very high temperatures. While it was overcast on Saturday and the track temperatures stayed around 44 degrees, it rose up to 55 degrees at the time of start on Sunday, so the conditions between the two days of the race weekend were significantly different. As for the problem that happened to the D'station ADVAN GT-R's tire, we are still investigating it. Some debris on the track might have caused it, but we have to inspect everything in detail to find out the true cause.

"WedsSport ADVAN SC430 was forced to bring forward the pit stop because Andre Couto was struggling in the early stage of the race under the higher track temperature conditions. But Seiji Ara who was at the wheel for the second half managed the tires very well and drove in consistent pace, which led to the point finish. But, all in all, we have to admit we were a little frustrated with the result of this weekend because we had expected better outcomes.

"As for the GT300, it was a shame to see ENDLESS Taisan 911 spinning at the first corner just after the start but the car recovered to second at the end of the race and 'triple a' Vantage GT3 did a good race as well despite having a mechanical problem. It was also regrettable that GSR Hatsune Miku BMW ran out of fuel while it was running in second until the closing stage, as the team really wanted to get some points here to stay on the top of the point standings.

"Honestly speaking, we wish we could have had decent result in Sepang before heading to Sugo. But at least we could collect valuable data in regard to the reason why we had missed our target both in the GT500 and GT300 class. Now we look ahead and try to utilize this experience in the next race at Sugo."