Despite setting the fastest time in the qualifying, the Honda NSX driven by Yuji Ide won’t be on pole for round six of the 2008 Autobacs SUPER GT, the 37th International Pokka 1000Km at Suzuka. Pole position for the race has instead been awarded to the second fastest qualifier, the Nissan GT-R of Krumm/Yanagidaand D.Schwager.

The NSX was penalised after changing engines due to trouble in the Friday session, under Super GT rules this meant a penalty of ten grid positions which now sees the car start from 11th place.
It was a day plagued by rain, with the morning qualifying session starting on a completely wet track.
In the afternoon the rain fell even harder and there were water puddles on the track that made driving conditions very difficult. Because of this the Super Lap was cancelled. As a result, the starting grid for the race was decided on the basis of the times from the morning qualifying.

In the GT300 class, the driver Tetsuya Yamano made full use of his all-wheel drive (AWD) advantage in the Subaru Impreza to run a fastest lap of 2 min. 22.432 sec. to win the team’s second GT300 class pole position of the season.

from Super GT Media