Honda HRC Prelude-GT takes first Super GT win at Fuji

The Honda HRC Prelude-GT scored its first win in the Autobacs Super GT Series at Fuji Speedway, where the No. 100 Team Kunimitsu Prelude-GT of Naoki Yamamoto and Tadasuke Makino won the Fuji GT 300Km race.

Past GT500 champions Yamamoto and Makino finished only 0.662s ahead of the No. 8 Team HRC ARTA Mugen Prelude-GT of Kakunoshin Ohta and Hiroki Otsu, who completed a Honda 1-2 finish on a day that began with rain, disorder and a frightening accident for Nakajima Racing's GT500 newcomer Igor Fraga.

Shortly after the Sunday morning warm-up, rain showers hit Fuji Speedway and covered the track surface with rain. The rain then lifted with less than 10 minutes until the formation lap, and every GT500 team switched to slick tires, anticipating the track to dry quickly in the summer heat.

After four laps behind the safety car, polesitter Otsu led the field to the green flag, but behind him, Fraga got a bit of a slow getaway in the No. 64 Nakajima Racing Honda, opening the door for the No. 23 NISMO Nissan Z GT500 of Mitsunori Takaboshi and the No. 12 Team Impul Nissan of Bertrand Baguette to try an overtake down the main straightaway. Baguette then touched Takaboshi and sent him into Fraga, whose car spun out and blew over into the air, landing driver-side first – and narrowly missing a collision with the gantry above the front straightaway. Immediately, the race was red-flagged.

Thankfully, Fraga was conscious and suffered no serious injuries, though as a precaution, he was transported to a local hospital for further examination. Along with the No. 64 Honda, the No. 23 Nissan retired due to suspension damage, and the No. 12 Nissan was later given a 90-second penalty stop for causing the incident.

The red flag was lifted after 34 minutes, and after a few pace laps behind the safety car, the race properly commenced on lap 10 – but before reaching the first corner, Otsu was overtaken for the lead by the No. 100 Team Kunimitsu Honda of Yamamoto, who drove into the lead.

Yamamoto and Makino would lead virtually the remainder of the race. Meanwhile, the No. 8 ARTA Mugen Honda slipped behind the No. 37 TGR Team TOM’S Toyota GR Supra after pit stops, but with eight laps to go, Ohta fought his way past Giuliano Alesi to move into second place.

He then began rapidly pursuing Makino for the lead, closing the gap down to only a second by the final lap. But Makino and the No. 100 Honda had more than enough in hand to hang on and score a landmark first win for the new HRC Prelude-GT.

The No. 37 TOM'S Toyota of Alesi and Ukyo Sasahara would complete the podium in third – but the championship leaders, the No. 36 TOM'S Toyota of Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita, drove brilliantly from 11th to finish fourth and extend their championship lead. It appeared as if the Success Refueling Restrictor, imposed on the No. 36 Toyota for its brace of wins to open the season, did not have the desired effect as the No. 36 TOM'S crew still provided a rapid pit stop during the race.

Tsuboi and Yamashita's lead is now 20 points over the No. 14 Rookie Racing Toyota (Nirei Fukuzumi/Kazuya Oshima), which finished seventh behind the No. 17 Real Racing Honda (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Yuto Nomura) and the No. 38 TGR Team Cerumo Toyota (Toshiki Oyu/Rikuto Kobayashi). Nissan's top finisher was the No. 24 Realize Corporation Z (Teppei Natori/Atsushi Miyake), out of the points in 11th.

Toyota may have been denied the GT500 win at its home track, but it would win in GT300 as the No. 52 Saitama Green Brave Toyota GR Supra of Hiroki Yoshida and Seita Nonaka prevailed for the team's first win since Autopolis in October 2023.

The No. 52 Green Brave GR Supra was one of the last GT300 cars to make its routine pit stop, and elected to only change the front-side Bridgestone tires. This allowed Yoshida to jump past the pole-sitting No. 45 Ponos Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo (Takuro Shinohara/Shintaro Kawabata) which had controlled the race up to that point.

Kawabata fought to get past Yoshida but the Ferrari could not find a way through, and eventually, he fell into the clutches of the No. 7 CarGuy MKS Racing Ferrari (Zak O'Sullivan/Kiyoshi Umegaki) and the No. 32 Rookie Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO (Hiroaki Ishiura/Tokiya Suzuki).

Yoshida won by 7.881s, followed by the No. 32 Rookie Racing AMG in second, and the No. 7 CarGuy MKS Ferrari in third. The No. 45 Ponos Ferrari slipped down to fourth, just half a second behind the sister 296.

With the win, Yoshida and Nonaka now lead the GT300 standings on countback, tied with the No. 2 INGING Toyota GR86 (Yuui Tsutsumi/Kazuhisa Urabe) which finished seventh, behind the No. 56 Kondo Racing Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 (João Paulo de Oliveira/Iori Kimura) and the No. 666 Seven x Seven Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R (Sven Müller/Kiyoto Fujinami).

The top six teams in the standings are covered by just six points, including the No. 65 K2 R&D LEON Racing Mercedes-AMG (Naoya Gamou/Togo Suganami) which finished 10th, the No. 31 apr Lexus LC500h (Kazuto Kotaka/Miki Koyama) which was 14th, and the No. 777 D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo (Tomonobu Fujii/Charlie Fagg), which languished down in 23rd.

Up next is the Suzuka GT 300km Race on Aug. 23, which will be aired live in the U.S. and Canada on RACER Network and RACER+

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