Yes, they are racing on Friday. Round two of the 2018 Super GT Championship will be run on a Friday as part of the annual Japanese Golden Week Holiday.
Large crowds are expected and they will see a Lexus on pole at Fuji with the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO LC500 (Yuji Tachikawa/Hiroaki Ishiura) on pole position with the driving of Tachikawa, which extended his own record for most pole positions in the GT500 class to 23. In the GT300 class, the No. 55 ARTA BMW M6 GT3?Shinichi Takagi/Sean Walkinshaw? won the class pole driven by Takagi. These two cars will start from front position on their respective class starting grids in the race on May 4.
Being Japan’s “Golden Week” holidays, the Fuji Speedway was crowded by a large number of fans from early in the morning. But from morning the circuit was covered in fog that forced the planned morning practice session to be cancelled due to poor visibility. For this reason, the official practice session was held for 30 minutes beginning at 12:50 in the afternoon. Before noon, the fog had also cleared and the track condition was dry under cloudy skies. In this session, the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Ronnie Quintarelli) recorded the fastest lap. The best time in the GT300 class was run by the No. 55 ARTA BMW M6 GT3 (Shinichi Takagi). After this, the starting time of the official qualifying was also rescheduled, and instead of the usual two qualifying sessions (Q1 and Q2), a single 20-minute session was held for each class to get their shot at a top spot on the starting grid. In the GT500 class qualifying session that started at 15:15, the teams divided the session into two 10-minute halves for their timed lap attempts. In the final timed lap of the first half, the No. 39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD LC500 (Heikki Kovalainen) recorded the fastest time of 1’28.573 and the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Ronnie Quintarelli) was second fastest.
Around the 10th minute after the start of the qualifying, the cars returned to the pit to change drivers and make some slight setting adjustments before returning to the track to make their final timed lap attempts. Beating the fastest time from the first 10-minute period on his last timed lap and claim pole position was the holder of the records for most wins and most poles at Fuji Speedway and the man they call the “Fuji Master,” Yuji Tachikawa in the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO LC500. His time of 1’27.904 was the only one to break the 1’28 barrier. Following Tachikawa came Kazuya Oshima in the No. 6 WAKO’S 4CR LC500 and Quintarelli in the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R, both had improved on their first-half times but not enough to break the 1’28 barrier before the 20-min. session ended. This gave the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO LC500 (Tachikawa/ Hiroaki Ishiura) team their first pole position since last year’s Round 2 here at Fuji. For Tachikawa this extended his own record for most pole positions in the GT500 class to 23.
Taking 2nd position in the qualifying was the No. 6 WAKO’S 4CR LC500 (Oshima/ Felix Rosenqvist), while 3rd position went to the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda/Quintarelli), Meanwhile, the fastest among the Honda NSX-GT cars was the No. 16 MOTUL MUGEN NSX-GT (Hideki Mutoh/Daisuke Nakajima) in 6th position.
BMW On Top In GT300
In the GT300 class, Shinichi Takagi in the No. 55 ARTA BMW M6 GT3 recorded a time of 1’36.573 on his last timed lap attempt to claim pole position. For Takagi, this was his 13th pole position, tying him for the record of most GT300 class poles. In 2nd and 3rd positions came the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT Takuto Iguchi) and the No. 65 LEON CVSTOS AMG (Naoya Gamou).
The race will be streamed live via Nismo TV at 15:30 AEST Friday, yes you heard me, FRIDAY.
Free’s up your weekend to come down to Phillip Island for the Grunt Performance Victorian Sports Sedan Championships.
Source: Super GT Media
