Suzuka - The No. 16 ARTA MUGEN NSX-GT takes a happily won pole Position

The official qualifying for the SUZUKA GT 450km RACE, Round 5 of the 2023 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, took place at Suzuka circuit (1 lap 5,807m) in Mie Prefecture on August 26 (Sat.). In the GT500 class, Fukuzumi in the No. 16 ARTA MUGEN NSX-GT (Nirei Fukuzumi/Hiroki Otsu) won a memorable first pole position for the No. 16 team under its’s new organization. In the GT300 class, Yamauchi in the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi) won the class pole position to extend his record for most PP wins to 14. On August 27, these two teams will start from the front of their respective class grids in the race.

Due to a delay in the progress of the support race, the 10-minute GT500 qualifying Q1 session started 10 minutes behind schedule, and once again it was the scene of fierce competition from the Q1 session. Amazingly, the top-placed No. 8 ARTA MUGEN NSX- GT (Tomoki Nojiri) and the 2nd-placed No. 24 REALIZE CORPORATION ADVAN Z (Kohei Hirate) both came in with an identical best time of 1’46.399 and the 3rd-place No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH Z (Tsugio Matsuda) was just 0.110 sec. behind them. What’s more, the intensity of the competition was shown once again when the 6th and 7th placing No. 17 Astemo NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi) and No. 38 ZENT CERUMO GR Supra (Hiroaki Ishiura) also finished with an identical time of 1’47.176.

The 8th-place finisher in the Q1 session was the No. 100 STANLEY NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto), but due to the fact that his teammate, Tadasuke Makino was under observation for injuries in an accident in another race the week before and finally did not receive the doctor’s permission to drive in Q2, the team finished in 8th place in the qualifying but will not be able to participate in Q2.

The Q2 session was also fiercely competitive with repeated changes in the top order, and in the end, it was Nirei Fukuzumi in the No. 16 ARTA MUGEN NSX-GT who came from behind to take pole position with a time of 1’46.385 to give the ARTA team its first pole position under its new organization. The No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH Z (Ronnie Quintarelli) finished in 2nd position just 0.037 sec. behind the leader. The third fastest time was recorded by the No. 8 ARTA MUGEN NSX-GT (Toshiki Oyu), but that time was disqualified because of running off the course in that lap, causing the team to finish in 7th position. Third position thus went to the No. 17 Astemo NSX-GT (Nobuharu Matsushita). The only GR Supra car to progress to Q2 was the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO GR Supra driven by Yujiu Tachikawa, and his time of 1’47.253 put him in 5th place in what would be his final qualifying at Suzuka before his announced retirement.

The GT300 class Q1 session was competed by two groups, A and B, determined by their season standings as of the last round. In Group A it was the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi) and in Group B it was the No. 6 DOBOT Audi R8 LMS (Yoshiaki Katayama) that recorded the fastest times. In the Q2 session competed by the fastest eight team from each group, for a total of 16 cars, Hideki Yamauchi in the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT was the only one to break into the 1’57 range with a time of 1’57.608. This gave Yamauchi a new record for most GT300 class pole positions, with 14.

■ Pole Position Winner Comments

No. 16 ARTA MUGEN NSX-GT [GT500] Nirei Fukuzumi: “When I saw the top time recorded by car No. 8 in Q1, I thought it would be hard to beat. But Otsu-san drove hard in Q1 and got us through to Q2, and before the start of Q2 he and the team worked to adjust the condition of the car for me. That is why I was able to run a good time in Q2. It was really due to those efforts by the team. I want to thank them for this!”

No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT [GT300] Hideki Yamauchi: “I am just really relieved. It is great that I got this (new record)! I am really happy to get this record. If it wasn’t for everyone on the team, it wouldn’t have been possible to achieve this record without their continued efforts. The Subaru BRZ is the greatest! I am so grateful for this! But we still have tomorrow’s race, so I am going to concentrate on that first of all.”