After the
Round 2 in Okayama and the domination of the Honda teams (3 in the top 5), the Super GT circus came to visit the famous 4.563km long Fuji Speedway (and its 1.5km full throttle straight line) to write another chapter of the 2007 season, the 3rd one, early May.
First, a quick look at the general standings before the race:
1 8 Daisuke Ito/Ralph Firman (Honda)
2 32 Loïc DUVAL/Fabio CARBONE (Nissan)
3 38 Yuji Tachikawa/Toranosuke Takagi (Lexus)
4 22 Michael Krumm/Tsugio Matsuda (Nissan)
5 100 Dominik Schwager/Shinya Hosokawa (Honda)
6 23 Satoshi Motoyama/Richard Lyons (Nissan)
7 1 Juichi Wakisaka/Andre Lotterer (Lexus)
8 18 Ryo Michigami/Takashi Kogure (Honda)
9 6 Tatsuya Kataoka/Bjorn Wirdheim (Lexus)
10 25 Takeshi Tsuchiya/Manabu Orido (Lexus)
11 17 Katsutomo Kaneishi/Toshihiro Kaneishi (Honda)
12 35 Naoki Hattori/Peter Dumbreck (Lexus)
13 12 Benoit Treluyer/Kazuki Hoshino (Nissan)
14 3 Sébastien Philippe/Masataka Yanagida (Nissan)
The Qualifications
The first qualifications session started at 10.20am on a dry circuit and under good weather conditions (66 degrees Fahrenheit in the air, 86 on the track), after the usual first 20 minutes dedicated to the GT300 class the GT500 could go but kept their forces for the second session and the crucial "Super lap" competition to try to get a place on the front row.
Here is a little recap of what happened.
First to get into the action was French pilot Benoit Treluyer on board of the number 12 CALSONIC IMPUL Nissan Z with a record lap of 1.33.949 beaten later by Toshihiro Kaneishi in the number 17 (REAL) NSX and instantly beaten again by Andre Lotterer in the impressive Lexus SC430 from the HOUZAN TOM'S team (number 1).
A few minutes later, the number 18 NSX (TAKATA DOME) put an end to everybody's hope for the pole position with an astonishing 1.33.066 perfect lap ! A new track record !! And of course the right to start ahead of any other on the starting grid.
At the same time the championship leaders Ito/Firman in the number 8 ARTA NSX where already struggling due to an extra 65kg penalty earned after their victory in the previous round.
Qualification session over and for the third consecutive time an NSX was on top of the list (2nd consecutive for the TAKATA DOME team), the first Lexus came second (HOUZAN TOM'S) and the first Nissan Z fifth (CALSONIC IMPUL Z).
The Race
The race is underway the next day at 2pm under a friendly sky and lots of wind, perfect conditions (80f air, 102f track).
The very first surprise happened just before the race, during the warm up lap the number 1 HOUZAN TOM'S Lexus SC430 was forced to give up, the sign of a race full of upsets and problems.
Kogure, the pole man driving the green/white TAKATA NSX couldn't have dreamed a better start with absolutely no threat on the front row, he instantly started to pull away with clean, fast and aggressive driving. Behind the first moves were made, the number 12 (CALSONIC Z) and 38 (ZENT CERUMO SC430) managed to overtake the 8 (ARTA NSX) and 17 (REAL NSX). 10 laps after the start the running order was the following : 8, 12 and 18.
On lap 14, the number 24 Fairlady Z (WOODONE ADVAN CLARION) spun out after hitting a GT300 class car, taking the number 17 (REAL) NSX with it, both cars had to give up.
At the front, the CALSONIC IMPUL Z started suffering from braking problems and gave up its second place to the ZENT CERUMO SC430 so we had 18, 38 and 12 on the podium right before the always critical pit stop to change the tyres, the pilot and refuel.
Once all the teams had made their changes the standings surprisingly appeared unchanged, at least for the 1st three positions but behind the number 22 (MOTUL AUTECH Z) was showing impressive speed and pace and managed to successfully overtake the 32 (lap 43) and the 38 (lap 48 ).
From there it wasn't long until the number 32 had to abandon as well when the NSX took fire after an accident with a slower GT300 class car (again). Red flag !! and restart a couple laps later, the time for the track officials to do their job.
3 cars tried to take advantage of the restart to overtake and came door to door at the first corner, this impressive move ended up pretty badly for the number 38 SC430 (spin out and countless seconds lost) and for Peter Dumbreck in the BANDAI DUNLOP number 35 SC430 (drive through penalty)...the third seeded had now changed, it was the number 23 Nissan Z (XANAVI NISMO) of Motoyama and Lyons.
Despite the loss of a 20+ seconds lead due to the red flag, the TAKATA DOME NSX kept on making fast laps on a very consistant basis, from the start it really looked untouchable but unfortunately for all the NSX fans, the problems started on lap 67 with transmission issues...the top speed of the car was now similar to GT300 machines and in these conditions they had to pit to fix the gearbox in an incredibly quick 12 minutes, but it was way to long to keep any hope of victory of course. From there, the fight for the first place was held between 2 Nissan Z, the 22 and 23, closely followed for a couple laps by the surprising number 6 (FORUM ENG SC430), a car that started 14th on the grid !
A couple minutes later the XANAVI NISMO Z (23) managed to overtake its number 22 sister and take the lead in what would be the last interesting move of this event. A race in which the NSX have, once again shown both reliability problems and lack of luck, the first Honda came 5th (number 100 RAYBRIG NSX).
Final standings:
1 23XANAVI NISMO Z Satoshi Motoyama Richard Lyons
2 22MOTUL AUTECH Z Michael Krumm Tsugio Matsuda
3 6Forum Eng. SC430 Tatsuya Kataoka Bjorn Wirdheim
4 3YellowHat TOMICA Z Sébastien Philippe Masataka Yanagida
5 100RAYBRIG NSX Dominik Schwager Shinya Hosokawa
6 38ZENT CERUMO SC430 Yuji Tachikawa Toranosuke Takagi
7 35BANDAI DUNLOP SC430 Naoki Hattori Peter Dumbreck
8 39DENSO SARD SC430 André Couto Katsuyuki Hiranaka
9 8ARTA NSX Daisuke Ito Ralph Firman
10 12CALSONIC IMPUL Z Benoit Tréluyer Kazuki Hoshino
11 18TAKATA DOME NSX Ryo Michigami Takashi Kogure
Classified (GT500: 76 Laps)
32 EPSON NSX Loïc DUVAL Fabio CARBONE
25 ECLIPSE ADVAN SC430 Takeshi Tsuchiya Manabu Orido
17 REAL NSX Katsutomo Kaneishi Toshihiro Kaneishi
24 WOODONE ADVAN Clarion Z J.P.L. De Oliveira Seiji Ara
1 houzan TOM'S SC430 Juichi Wakisaka Andre Lotterer
On the other end, the Fuji Speedway rendez-vous put smiles on the faces of Nissan teams, it was the first time since 2001 that 2 Nissans did a 1-2 finish and last time was...at the Fuji Speedway !
General standings after 3 rounds:
1 23XANAVI NISMO Z Satoshi Motoyama Richard Lyons
36
2 22MOTUL AUTECH Z Michael Krumm Tsugio Matsuda
-4
3 8ARTA NSX Daisuke Ito Ralph Firman
-6
4 38ZENT CERUMO SC430 Yuji Tachikawa Toranosuke Takagi
-9
5 100RAYBRIG NSX Dominik Schwager Shinya Hosokawa
-14
6 32EPSON NSX Loic DUVAL Fabio CARBONE
-14
7 6Forum Eng. SC430 Tatsuya Kataoka Bjorn Wirdheim
-17
8 1houzan TOM'S SC430 Juichi Wakisaka Andre Lotterer
-22
9 18TAKATA DOME NSX Ryo Michigami Takashi Kogure
-23
10 35BANDAI DUNLOP SC430 Naoki Hattori Peter Dumbreck
-26
11 3YellowHat TOMICA Z Sebastien Philippe Masataka Yanagida
-27
12 25ECLIPSE ADVAN SC430 Takeshi Tsuchiya Manabu Orido
-29
13 REAL NSX Katsutomo Kaneishi Toshihiro Kaneishi
-30
14 12CALSONIC IMPUL Z Benoit Treluyer Kazuki Hoshino
-32
15 39DENSO SARD SC430 Andre Couto Katsuyuki Hiranaka
-33
Next round, number 4, in Malaysia, on the Sepang circuit in June (22nd to 24th) !
Posted on 08/05/07 By F.B
