YOKOHAMA TIRE / MOTOR SPORTS [SUPER GT 2013 Round 5 Suzuka]

The midsummer long distance race at Suzuka Circuit has a long history and the 42th International Pokka Sapporo 1000km race was held again as the year’s longest event in the 2013 Super GT series.

On Saturday, August 18th, the qualifying session began under strong sunshine, with the track surface temperature reaching nearly 50 degrees Celsius. As it was the traditional holiday break season in Japan, many families were found in the spectators stands.

The Yokohama shoed GT500 cars, WedsSport ADVAN SC430 and D'station ADVAN GT-R, made their qualifying efforts using the medium compound tires but fell short of making their way into Q2. In the GT300 class, however, nine cars out of 13 that were allowed to run in Q2 were equipped with the Yokohama tires. The third overall and the fastest among the Yokohama shoed cars was Exe Aston Martin with Hideto Yasuoka at the wheel and this was the best qualifying result of the season for the car. Behind him, the performance of AMG Mercedes cars was prominent and Haruki Kurosawa in Leon SLS came in fifth, followed by Masaki Jyonai's Greentec SLS AMG GT3 and Hironori Takeuchi's Okinawa-Imp SLS.

There was a shower just before the warm up session on Sunday morning but the clouds disappeared soon after that. When the 173 lap race was about to start at half past noon, the air temperature rose to 34 with the surface temperature at 47.

WedsSport ADVAN SC430 started the race with Andre Couto at the wheel and so did D'station ADVAN GT-R with Hironobu Yasuda. On Lap 13, Couto passed Denso Kobelco SC430 and moved up to 11th. After that, the two Yokohama equipped cars gained more positions due to the opponents' pit stops or accidents and they made their scheduled pit stops on Lap 34 when the WedsSport car was running in fifth and the D'station backed GT-R in eighth. The driver for the second stint of WedsSport ADVAN SC430 was Seiji Ara, while D'station ADVAN GT-R was handed to Michael Krumm.

On Lap 66, when the second scheduled stops were approaching, the Safety Car came out because one of the race cars had caught on fire. D'station ADVAN GT-R was quick to come in the pit on the same lap to change back to Yasuda but WedsSport ADVAN SC430 stayed out for a while and made the stop to change to Couto three laps later when the leading cars did so.

Because of the clever choice of timing to make the stop, WedsSport ADVAN SC430 made a leap forward and was running in fifth when the racing resumed on Lap 73. In contrast, D'station ADVAN GT-R had a problem on its front suspension on Lap 72, before the Safety Car went away, and was forced to come back to the pit again. Worse still, the repair work took a very long time and the car lost ten laps before rejoining the race when the leader was on its 81st lap. So the fate of the Yokohama shoed cars became very different from one another.

Then Couto gained one more position because one of the leading cars was penalized for an offense of rules during the Safety Car period. Now running in fourth, WedsSport ADVAN SC430 was leading the close pack of five or six cars but gradually pulled away from the others. After registering a lead lap on Lap 106, Couto came in the pit for their third stop to hand the wheel to Ara who rejoined the race in fourth.

The Japanese was making every effort to catch up with the car in third place. When he was going to lap a slower car at the S curves on Lap 132, however, the car unexpectedly ran wide at the exit, so Ara was forced to use the dirty part of the track to avoid a collision and, as a result, he had to go off the track because he lost a lot of grip. Fortunately, he could come back to the track soon but found himself falling back to sixth.

But Ara was never demoralized by the incident and, after the last pit stop on Lap 140, Couto finished the race in sixth which meant the second consecutive point finish, following to the ninth in the previous Sugo round. D'station ADVAN GT-R was hit by a mechanical problem again on Lap 106 and went off the track at the hair pin corner. The car could come back to the pit but the team had to choose retirement at that point.

As for the GT300 class, the stars in the early stage of the race were Kazuki Hoshino in S Road NDDP GT-R and Ryohei Sakaguchi in Exe Aston Martin who hotly fought for second. After completing Lap 15, however, Hoshino started to pull away from Sakaguchi and, just before his scheduled pit stop for driver change, the Aston Martin driver began to struggle with the malfunctioning engine, as one of its 12 cylinders stopped working.

Making the most of its good fuel consumption rate, S Road NDDP GT-R could run for three laps longer than the race leader until the first pit stop, on Lap 31. However, Daiki Sasaki, to whom Hoshino handed the car, was surprised to see GSR Hatsune Miku BMW in front of him when he got back to the track. That was because, after the driver change from Tatsuya Kataoka to Jorg Muller who was called in for this long distance race to drive the BMW, the German was running in a very good pace, as the track in front of him was almost clear. But, when Muller came in the pit to change with Nobuteru Taniguchi on Lap 48, S Road NDDP GT-R moved up to second again.

But the Safety Car period from Lap 62 (for the GT300 class leader) completely changed the situation. Seeing the Safety Car coming out, S Road NDDP GT-R immediately reacted to it and made the pit stop. However, the car lost a lot of ground by waiting for the signal to turn green at the pit exit and, on top of this, it was given a 90 second stop and go penalty, as the car came in the pit after the SC boards were shown, which was a violation of the rules. As a result, S Road NDDP GT-R was effectively out of contention at that point.

In sharp contrast, GSR Hatsune Miku BMW chose staying out during the Safety Car period and this helped the car to move up to second. Because the car's sequence of pit stops was different from other leading cars, the BMW lost several places every time it made a pit stop but, when Taniguchi rejoined the race after the last driver change on Lap 134, he was still running in second.

Around that time, the race leading Subaru BRZ R&D Sport was slightly slowing down because the damaged body work began to touch with its right-hand rear tire. The team decided to call the car in to the pit for repair on Lap 141, about 20 laps to go, and this gave the lead position to Taniguchi's Hatsune Miku BMW. When the Subaru got back to the track, the gap between the two cars was about four seconds but Subaru BRZ R&D Sport was running more than one second faster per lap and was clearly superior in the straight line speed, so Taniguchi had no choice but to give the position back to the Subaru on Lap 147.

But finishing in second after having been qualified in lowly 17th was still very good result for the trio of Taniguchi, Kataoka and Muller, so they had big smiles at the podium ceremony. However, their car was found to have a technical infringement on its intake air restrictor at the scrutineering after the race and GSR Hatsune Miku BMW was excluded from the official result.

This handed the second place to Okinawa-Imp SLS. The regular driver pair of the car, Takeuchi and Takeshi Tsuchiya, plus Naoya Gamou, the third driver for this race, made no major mistake and their consistent drive led to the good result. The third place went to another AMG Mercedes, Leon SLS, driven by Haruki Kurosawa, Tsubasa Kurosawa and Akihiko Nakaya. MonePa Lamborghini GT3 started from the lowly 21st grid but, as a result of tremendous efforts by Manabu Orido / Takayuki Aoki pair, it moved up to fourth at the end of the day!