Honda dominates qualifying for Super GT Suzuka 300

Honda has locked out the front two rows for this Sunday's Super GT 300 kilometer race at Suzuka Circuit, and leading them will be the No. 17 Real Racing Honda HRC Prelude-GT driven by veteran Koudai Tsukakoshi and rookie Yuto Nomura.

RACER+ and RACER Network is the excusive North American home of Super GT, and will have live coverage of Sunday’s race at Suzuka starting at 12:20am ET/Saturday, 9:20pm PT. English-language commentary is provided by Speed City Broadcasting’s Jonathan Green, and RACER.com Super GT correspondent RJ O’Connell.

On his one and only flying lap in Q2, Nomura set a lap of 1m45.129s to grab his first career GT500 pole position by less than a tenth of a second, ahead of Riki Okusa (1m45.206s) in the No. 64 Nakajima Racing Honda, the only GT500 car on Dunlop tires.

Nomura became the youngest GT500 class pole-sitter in the history of Super GT, at 20 years, 283 days. He surpassed the previous record holder Ralf Schumacher (30 years, 305 days) who won the pole for the 1996 Suzuka GT 300km at the wheel of a McLaren F1 GTR.

Okusa and Igor Fraga will start second for Nakajima Racing: Fraga, in his first Super GT outing since his scary accident in the last race at Fuji Speedway, was the fastest driver in Q1, a statement of intent from the Brazilian-Japanese GT500 rookie.

Locking out the second row for Honda were the two ARTA Mugen cars, the No. 8 of Kakunoshin Ohta and Hiroki Otsu in third, and the No. 16 of Tomoki Nojiri and Ren Sato in fourth, separated by only 0.015s.

Honda is coming off the first win for the new HRC Prelude-GT in GT500, but the team that got that first win will have an almost impossible task to get a second consecutive win: The No. 100 Team Kunimitsu Prelude-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino) finished 14th and last in Q1, and to make matters worse, the No. 100 car will also have to serve a five-second stop-and-hold penalty after the green flag for an engine change after practice on Saturday morning.

Nissan’s leading qualifier was the No. 12 Team Impul Nissan Z NISMO GT500 (Kazuki Hiramine/Bertrand Baguette) in fifth place, and Toyota’s top qualifier was the Yokohama Tire-shod No. 19 TGR Team Bandoh Toyota GR Supra GT500 (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi) in sixth.

Last year’s Suzuka 300km winners Katsumasa Chiyo and Mitsunori Takaboshi will start eighth in the No. 23 NISMO Nissan, while GT500 championship leaders Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita will start 11th after missing out on Q2 in their No. 36 TGR Team TOM’S Toyota.

GT300 produced a surprise first-time pole winner: The No. 9 Pacific Racing Team BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Yusuke Tomibayashi and Yuta Fujiwara bested several established top outfits to take the team’s first-ever pole position in 17 years.

It was also the first career pole for Tomibayashi, a true sim racing-turned-real world racing convert in the style of GT Academy winners Lucas Ordoñez and Jann Mardenborough, already in his fifth season of GT300 racing.

The combination of the BMW and its Michelin tires proved effective as Fujiwara went second fastest in his Q1 group, while Tomibayashi set a 1m56.547s to grab the pole by just 0.004s over the No. 777 D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Tomonobu Fujii and Charlie Fagg (1m56.551s).

In third place was the No. 61 R&D Sport Subaru BRZ (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi), ahead of the No. 60 LM corsa Lexus LC500 (Hiroki Yoshimoto/Shunsuke Kohno), the No. 18 Team UpGarage Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO (Takashi Kobayashi/Kotaro Shimbara), and the No. 7 CarGuy MKS Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo (Zak O’Sullivan/Kiyoshi Umegaki).

Championship leaders Hiroki Yoshida and Seita Nonaka start 13th in their No. 52 Saitama Green Brave Toyota GR Supra, while the No. 2 Inging Motorsport Toyota GR86 (Yuui Tsutsumi/Kazuhisa Urabe) which was second in points, missed Q2 and will start way down in 24th.

Also of note is the No. 666 Seven x Seven Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R starting 22nd; Suzuka will mark the debut of Porsche Carrera Cup Japan championship leader Taichi Watarai, the 22-year-old protegé of team manager/driver Kiyoto Fujinami. Watarai was named as a late substitution for the team earlier this week, and is expected to run the remaining races alongside Sven Müller.

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