Fuji Test Day 2: Bridgestone Leads Both Classes In Heavy Rain
Pre-season testing for the 2023 Autobacs SUPER GT Series concluded today at Fuji Speedway. And just like yesterday, rainy weather would be a factor throughout each of Sunday’s two test sessions.
In the GT500 class, the Toyota GR Supra GT500s set the benchmark with a 1-2 finish in the morning’s Session 3, and a top-four lockout in Session 4 during the afternoon.
In Session 3, it was the #36 au TOM’s GR Supra of Sho Tsuboi and Ritomo Miyata that stood atop the time sheets after two hours and 15 minutes. 2021 GT500 Champion Tsuboi set the car’s best time at 1’41.661, just nine-hundredths up from the #14 Eneos X Prime GR Supra (Kazuya Oshima/Kenta Yamashita) in second.
Next were the two ARTA Mugen Honda NSX-GTs, the bright orange #8 (Tomoki Nojiri/Toshiki Oyu) in third, followed by the black #16 (Nirei Fukuzumi/Hiroki Otsu) in fourth. In fact, Bridgestone customer teams locked out the top eight places in Session 3 – while neither of the two Yokohama customer teams in GT500 set a representative lap time.
The fastest non-Bridgestone runner, and the fastest Nissan, was the #23 Motul Autech Nissan Z (Tsugio Matsuda/Ronnie Quintarelli), in ninth place.
Despite the weather, there were no red flags which interrupted the session. But a 15-minute Safety Car training procedure had to be cancelled, and there was no Full Course Yellow (FCY) practice after the session, either.
Conditions were equally treacherous in Session 4. With 12 minutes elapsed, Quintarelli left the pits in the #23 Motul Z, but on his out-lap, he went off at 100R corner and crashed into the tyre barriers – a rare error for the four-time GT500 Champion, which brought out a red flag.
23号車開幕戦までになおるよね！？#SUPERGT #23号車 pic.twitter.com/nTWhNlgiU7
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Quintarelli walked away from the accident unharmed, but the #23 Motul Z was done for the afternoon. Also, the #19 WedsSport Advan GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi) didn’t run at all in Session 4, after recording the second-fastest time yesterday using Yokohama’s new pattern of wet-weather tyres.
There was another red flag in the last 25 minutes of the session, caused by the #18 UPGarage Honda NSX GT3 of rookie Syun Koide – who spun off at Advan Corner and found himself beached in the gravel at the inside run-off area.
After the first red flag for Quintarelli’s incident, there was a window where the rain stopped, and GT500 teams were able to set their fastest times. Kenta Yamashita already led Session 1 yesterday, in his first time at the wheel of a racing car in nearly two months. Today, he continued his swift recovery by logging the fastest time of the day to lead Session 4, at 1’39.263.
“Despite these conditions, we were able to successfully complete our test menu. The lap time came out at a time when the conditions were improving as the rainfall was changing rapidly. We did not do a time attack,” said the 2019 GT500 Champion. “I really wanted to drive in the dry, but it was still a good test to see how fast I could go in wet conditions. And I am relieved to be able to show speed in the first test after returning from my injury.”
“A lot has happened in the off-season, but we want to get off to a good start in the season opener in Okayama,” he added. Oshima and Yamashita have won the last two season-opening races at Okayama.
Toyota’s sweep of the top four places in Session 4 was completed by the #37 Deloitte TOM’s GR Supra (Ukyo Sasahara/Giuliano Alesi) in second, then the #39 Denso Kobelco SARD GR Supra (Yuhi Sekiguchi/Yuichi Nakayama) in third, and the #36 au TOM’s GR Supra in fourth.
Koudai Tsukakoshi, driver of the #17 Astemo NSX-GT, commented: “The rainfall was a little heavier at times than yesterday morning, but the conditions were not bad trying things we couldn’t do yesterday with our set-up.”
After Togo Suganami’s crash during Saturday Session 1 resulted in Hoppy Team Tsuchiya withdrawing from the remainder of the test, several teams in the GT300 class were hesitant to run in the heavy rain. 19 out of the 26 cars took to the track in Session 3, with only 14 of them posting a representative lap time – and only seven cars left the garage for Session 4.
Someone still had to lead each of these sessions, and in Session 3, it was the #2 muta Racing Toyota GR86 (Yuui Tsutsumi/Hibiki Taira/Hiroki Katoh) that set the fastest time.
Tsutsumi led the way with a 1’50.762, and said after the morning session, “There were several rivers flowing on the course, but as long as we were careful about hydroplaning, we were able to get the best out of the Bridgestone tyres.”
The fastest time in GT500 for the day was set by the #52 Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave GR Supra (Hiroki Yoshida/Kohta Kawaai). After Yoshida went second-fastest in Session 3, he set a 1’48.404 in Session 4 to take the top time out of the seven cars which participated.
“I didn’t want to take too many risks, but I wanted to compare the state of the car between yesterday and today to make progress with the set-up,” Yoshida explained. “I initially waited in the pits and watched the GT500 class times (in the afternoon), but as they were getting closer and closer to the morning times, I thought that it might be surprisingly good to run. In fact, this was true and conditions were better than expected.
The 2020 GT300 championship runner-up was upbeat about GreenBrave’s prospects in the first two rounds to start 2023. “Okayama and Fuji are relatively compatible tracks at the beginning of the season, but last year we didn’t have a very good result in Okayama due to problems. I would like to get off to a good start in the opening round, and then pile up even more points at Fuji, where we have good chemistry, even though the success weight will be heavier.”
In Session 3, the #65 LEON Pyramid Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Naoya Gamou/Takuro Shinohara) was third-fastest, followed by the new #31 apr Lexus LC500h (Koki Saga/Kazuto Kotaka/Yuki Nemoto) in fourth. In Session 4, the #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi/Kota Sasaki) was second behind the GreenBrave GR Supra, followed by the #18 UPGarage NSX GT3 of Koide and Takashi Kobayashi.
Hiroto Kaneso, Team Director of apr, was feeling positive after the new LC500h GT300’s first two official tests. “We’re fast in sectors one and two, even in the rain, so we’re getting good times there. We didn’t stand out in terms of absolute speed at Okayama, but I originally thought it wasn’t going to be our best track, so it was a good result,” said Kaneso-san.
The winner of the day was Bridgestone, who spent this test gathering much-needed data for their wet-weather tyre compounds. The provisional 2023 tyre pattern, with its diagonal, shallow grooves (captured above during J Sports’ online broadcast of testing) looks as if it was designed for lighter rain and a damp track while hedging bets that conditions like the ones from today would require a Safety Car or Red Flag.
But if it was the pattern used today as teams set their top times, then Bridgestone’s fleet of ten GT500 teams may have an answer for the Michelin-clad Nissans of NISMO and NDDP Racing in a race like the one at Sportsland Sugo. We’ll see what happens if the weather is a factor in an official race.
With four days of official pre-season testing completed, there are now less than 21 days until the first race of the SUPER GT season – at Okayama International Circuit, the site of the Okayama GT 300km Race on 15/16 April.
Images © GTA
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