Fuji : Third straight pole position for WedsSport Advan GR Supra

Official Qualifying for the FUJIMAKI GROUP FUJI GT 100 Lap RACE, Round 4 of the 2022 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, took place on August 6th at Fuji Speedway (one lap 4,563 m) in Shizuoka Prefecture. The GT500 class Pole Position was won by Sakaguchi in the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi) for the second straight time at Fuji since Round 2 and its 3rd consecutive time this season. The GT300 class pole was taken by Gamou in the No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG (Naoya Gamou/Takuro Shinohara). These two teams will start from the front of their respective class grids in tomorrow’s race on August 7th.

Compared to the intense heat of the previous week, this day at Fuji Speedway saw cloudy skies from morning, and just before the qualifying rounds started at 3:00 the air temperature stood at a relatively cool 22 degrees C. for this time in early August. The 10-minute Q1 session for the GT500 class began at 3:35. The first to post a top time was the currently 2nd-ranked No. 14 ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra (Kazuya Oshima), but immediately after that the No. 100 STANLEY NSX- GT (Tadasuke Makino) recorded a time of 1’27.362 to take the top position. With three minutes remaining in the session, the TOYOTA GR Supra GT500 cars for whom Fuji Speedway is their home course, began to dominate the intense competition for top spot on the time board. Among them, the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO GR Supra (Hiroaki Ishiura) ran a time of 1’27.095 to move into top position. Soon after that, the No. 36 au TOM'S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi) recorded exactly the same time, but since car No. 38 had recorded the time earlier, it remained the top qualifier in the Q1 session according to the regulation. The final results of the session saw GR Supra cars sweeping the top four positions, followed in 5th position by a Honda NSX-GT car, the No. 8 ARTA NSX-GT (Nirei Fukuzumi). Finishing out the top eight qualifiers in the session were three Nissan Z GT500 cars headed by the No. 24 

Realize corporation ADVAN Z (Daiki Sasaki).

In the following 10-minute GT500 Q2 session for the top eight qualifies from the Q1 session, the time attacks began from the last three minutes of the session. There it was the car No. 38 (Yuji Tachikawa) who first recorded a top time of 1’27.074, but soon the competition for the top spot entered the 1’26 sec. range. After car No. 24 (Kohei Hirate) recorded a time of 1’26.81, another car running on Yokohama tires, No. 19 (Sena Sakaguchi) came in with an amazing time 1’26.178 to move into the lead. On the checkered flag lap, the No. 37 KeePer TOM'S GR Supra (Ritomo Miyata) ran a time of 1’26.994, which was only good enough for 3rd position. This gave the pole position to the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi). For the team and the GR Supra GT500 cars this was their third straight pole position in the season. Finishing the qualifying in 2nd position was the No. 24 Realize corporation ADVAN Z. The top qualifier among the NSX-GT cars was the No. 8 ARTA NSX-GT (Tomoki Nojiri) in 5th position.

The GT300 class Q1 session was competed in two groups, A and B based on the team rankings after the previous round. In Group A, the No.10 TANAX GAINER GT-R (Riki Okusa) was the top qualifier, which in Group B it was the No. 11 GAINER TANAX GT-R (Keishi Ishikawa) who finished on top. In Q2, competed by the top eight qualifiers from the two groups, for a total of 16 cars, it was Gamou in the No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG (Naoya Gamou/Takuro Shinohara) who gave the most impressive performance to take class pole with a time of 1’35.550 that just barely outdid that of the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Hideki Yamauchi) that had taken the last three pole positions here at Fuji. This gave the team its first GT300 class pole since the opening round at Fuji in 2020.

■ Pole Position Driver Comments

No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra [GT500] Sena Sakaguchi: “I was surprised to get a time better than I had expected in my time attacks. But because the team didn’t sound too excited over the radio, I thought that maybe we hadn’t gotten pole position (laughs). But I was so happy when we did. The car was very good, and I had gotten valuable advice from Kunimoto-san (just before Q2). I am really grateful to the whole team.”

No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG [GT300] Naoya Gamou: “Since I hadn’t expected that we would win pole position, I am tremendously happy. I want to take this momentum into tomorrow’s race and run it with no mistakes, so I hope everyone will be cheering for us!”