the fourth straight victory for Nissan

Round 5 of the Super GT was held at Fuji Speedway on August 7 during the first weekend of August, as the entire length of Japan was in the midst of sweltering midsummer heat. Here the #12 Calsonic Impul GT-R (with drivers Hironobu Yasuda and Joao Paulo Lima de Oliveira) started from pole position. Through a superb performance, they maintained a completely unthreatened lead right until they took a perfect race victory.

With the #1 Motul Autech GT-R grabbing two consecutive victories in the opening round at Okayama at the first Fuji race in May, followed by the #24 Forum Engineering Advan GT-R grabbing the win at the last round at Sugo, this has made it a four-round winning streak for the Nissan GT-R NISMO GT500.

With intense heat beginning from qualifying on the previous day, race day at Fuji Speedway saw hot conditions right from early in the morning. It was clear that the race could also expect some sweltering conditions.

The parade lap began on schedule behind a precession of Shizuoka prefecture police vehicles and, after the GT cars carried out a rolling lap, the race kicked off at 2:42pm. Pole sitter, the #12 Calsonic Impul GT-R began with Oliveira behind the wheel. He shot out in front of the pack with a blistering starting dash. In the initial stages the race proceeded in the order of the starting grid, with the No.46 S Road Craftsports GT-R (Satoshi Motoyama/ Katsumasa Chiyo) and the #1 Motul Autech GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda/Ronnie Quintarelli) in second and third respectively.

However, with the #1 laden with 84kg of handicap weight, the #12 and #46 began to gradually pull away. Even between these top two machines, the #12 was unmistakably achieving a higher pace and the gap between the two steadily widened. After the race had entered into lap 20, the #12 had built up an over 11 second margin when an accident occurred on the course. The safety car was then dispatched in order for the resulting debris to be cleared from the track.

Although this meant that the #12's margin would be completely lost, when the safety car made way for pit road at the end of lap 24, Oliveira took advantage of a back-marker running between himself and the #46 to again rapidly build up a lead of a few seconds. At the 33-lap mark, the #12 went into the pits for a routine stop and Oliveira handed the wheel over to Yasuda. Taking charge of the second stint Yasuda pushed hard right from his out-lap and began to expand the gap with the #46 that had pitted just one lap previous. From then on, after the #46 dropped out of the race, from lap 47 onwards he maintained an over 20-second lead over the rest of the pack and ticked off laps until completing an impeccable lights-to-flag finish and taking their first victory of the season.

The #1 Motul Autech GT-R started from third place on the grid, placing its first stint in the hands of Quintarelli, after which Matsuda took control for the second. Although it initially managed to keep pace with the top two #12 and #46, the 84kg handicap was clearly taking its toll and they were forced into a race of perseverance as they worked to preserve their tires. In spite of this, they were able maintain their third placed position throughout the early stages of the race. However, at the time of pitting, they relinquished this spot to some lighter machines. After they pitted at lap 33, following the example of the #12 that was running comfortably in the lead, Matsuda took the reins from Quintarelli and headed out for the second stint. The #1 moved into 4th place and Matsuda continued their fierce pursuit of those ahead, gradually closing in on the two machines battling it out for 2nd. Unfortunately, there really was no overcoming the effect of the significant weight handicap and he was unable to move up any further, ultimately finishing in 4th. This earned them 8 more championship points and further cemented their position as the ranking leader.

The #46 S Road Craftsports GT-R that was expected to battle it out with the #12 for the top spot, started from 2nd on the grid with Satoshi Motoyama at the helm. As expected it was initially holding its own up against the #12. After pitting one lap earlier than the #12, Katsumasa Chiyo took the wheel for the second half and immediately pushed hard right from the out-lap but one lap later went off course at the first corner due to mechanical trouble that put an end to their race. As for the #24 Forum Engineering Advan GT-R (Daiki Sasaki / Masataka Yanagida) that started from 6th place on the grid, some unfortunate engine trouble forced them into an early retirement.

In the GT300 the #3 B-Max NDDP GT-R (Kazuki Hoshino / Jann Mardenborough) began the race from 17th place on the grid. Despite this Hoshino pulled out a hard push forward that Mardenborough followed up on in the second stint. As a result, they achieved an impressive 6th place finish that earned them 6 essential championship points.

Comment from Impul team principal, Kazuyoshi Hoshino: "I'm relieved we finally got a win. We were running at a good pace right from the start but carrying out a race where we're being chased rather than doing the chasing is not the best feeling. The reason I told JP (Oliveira) to pit in early is because I saw the timing of the #46, who we were doing battle with, and decided that it would be best to tell him to come in. The effort from the whole team has seen us also grab the ZF Award (best mechanic award). The fact that we couldn't get a result in the last two rounds is on me, but I think I've been able to clear that off my record with today's win. We'll continue to fight hard in the next round."

Comment from NISMO's team principal, Yutaka Suzuki: "Considering we were carrying [84kg of] weight I think we had a pretty good race. It's not the absolute best we could do but I think for the most part we carried out our race as planned under the expected conditions. We've managed to increase our lead as point leader over the next rival in second so that's good.

[GT500 Race Result] 66Laps

Pos No Machine Driver Time / Behind1 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R Hironobu Yasuda / J.P.De Oliveira 1:51'53.2232 17 KEIHIN NSX CONCEPT-GT Koudai Tsukakoshi / Takashi Kogure 25.4243 100 RAYBRIG NSX CONCEPT-GT Naoki Yamamoto / Takuya Izawa 28.6504 1 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R sugio Matsuda / Ronnie Quintarelli 28.9405 36 au TOM'S RC F Daisuke Ito / Nick Cassidy 30.8316 8 ARTA NSX CONCEPT-GT Kosuke Matsuura / Tomoki Nojiri 36.7307 38 ZENT CERUMO RC F Yuji Tachikawa / Hiroaki Ishiura 45.8378 39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD RC F Heikki Kovalainen / Kohei Hirate 49.0179 6 WAKO'S 4CR RC F Kazuya Oshima / Andrea Caldarelli 55.31010 19 WedsSport ADVAN RC F Yuhi Sekiguchi / Yuji Kunimoto 1'33.221DNF 46 S Road CRAFTSPORTS GT-R Satoshi Motoyama / Katsumasa Chiyo 32LapsDNF 24 Forum Engineering ADVAN GT-R Daiki Sasaki / Masataka Yanagida 55Laps

[GT300 Race Result] 62Laps

Pos No Machine Driver Time / Behind1 55 ARTA BMW M6 GT3 Shinichi Takagi / Takashi Kobayashi 1:52'46.6232 21 Hitotsuyama Audi R8 LMS Richard Lyons / Tomonobu Fujii 0.1063 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT Takuto Iguchi / Hideki Yamauchi 10.7624 88 MANEPA LAMBORGHINI GT3 Manabu Orido / Kazuki Hiramine 28.9485 4 GOODSMILE HATSUNE MIKU AMG Nobuteru Taniguchi / Tatsuya Kataoka 28.9546 3 B-MAX NDDP GT-R Nobuteru Taniguchi / Tatsuya Kataoka 33.2139 0 GAINER TANAX GT-R Andre Couto / Ryuichiro Tomita 1Lap12 48 DIJON Racing GT-R Mitsunori Takaboshi / Takayuki Aoki 1LapDNF 360 RUNUP Group&DOES GT-R Yusaku Shibata / Atsushi Tanaka 52Laps

GT500 point standingsDrivers

Pos No Driver total1 1 Tsugio Matsuda / Ronnie Quintarelli 504 12 Hironobu Yasuda / J.P.De Oliveira 286 24 Daiki Sasaki / Masataka Yanagida 2210 46 Satoshi Motoyama / Katsumasa Chiyo 15

Teams

Pos No Driver total1 1 NISMO 625 12 TEAM IMPUL 339 24 KONDO RACING 2810 46 MOLA 22

GT300 point standingsDrivers

Pos No Driver total3 3 Kazuki Hoshino / Jann Mardenborough 3212 0 Andre Couto / Ryuichiro Tomita 1118 48 Hiroshi Takamori / Takayuki Aoki 1

Teams

Pos No Driver total2 3 NDDP RACING 4413 0 GAINER 2319 48 DIJON Racing 922 360 TOMEI SPORTS 5