Unwilling results in the qualifying rounds made the race even harder. But, thanks to the 2nd place achieved by the #100 car, we could confirm that the direction of our development has not been wrong. The feeling we had in the pre-season test in Okayama suggested a rather gloomy outcome, however, the actual performance turned out to be much better than expected. Both the #17 and #8 cars using the same tires were not particularly fast, and there should be definite reasons. We’re gonna look into any possible causes and find out solution at HRC, for sure. The second round at Fuji Speedway will be a long 450km-race which provides us with another critical challenge as to the pit work. I think the longer the race distance becomes the better our chance will be. So, we thank you in advance for the continuous support next time again.

The original plan was to move up the position by pitstop, but the pace wasn’t good enough that I’d rather moved down my position. I tried to adjust my driving style this and that, in the meantime, the tire conditions begun to change gradually. I raised my pace while others’ falling down, and thus I could close in on front runners. Still, I knew it’s extremely hard to switch positions unless I had some good fortunes, because Okayama is famous for its “hard-to-overtake” character. As it was, two cars in front fighting very close each other made a big slipstream for me, and I could sneak inside of them using it. I must thank them for their fairness when I made my move. That was really a superb battle fought by superb drivers free of the slightest scratch.

In the early part of the race, I could never beat the #39 car, even though my pace was better. I had some chances but Sekiguchi drove the #39 car pretty well, and I was riveted to the spot behind. Meanwhile, the #38 car closing in on me tale-to-nose, overtook me at Atwood corner as I was delayed by a GT300 car. I think I was lucky not to hit anything nor run over the track (albeit a brief lock-up of front tires). That’s why I’d rather thankful to get a result like this. After that, it’s Naoki-san (Yamamoto) made the job done all through to the end. He’s fantastic in the truest sense of the word! I had let the #14 car run away while I was wasting my time with the #39 car. If I dealt (with the #39 car) smarter in my stint, the result would be even better I think.

I couldn’t do the long run on Saturday so that I had little confidence on myself. But, Ohta marked pretty good times using hard tires (for long distance runs) in the morning warm-up session, which made me feel, “I can run fast too, hopefully.” As I used soft tires in the qualifying session, I would have my race tires worn a bit quickly. So, we planned to cut my stint relatively shorter, and let Ohta run longer till to the end. Therefore, finishing 2nd today was a good result for me all in all. I’ve got pretty well with my new teammate, Ohta. We’ve been to the public bath together for a couple of times already, and building up a “Naked Association” literally (laughs). I mean a completely open relationship, and we’ll find out merits or differences each other. With such mutual understandings set on the basics, we’ll dig deep into the setting up the car. I expect, in that way, we can perform better and better throughout the season.

I’m extremely happy that I could achieve a podium finish in my debut race. I had, at one time, the #9 car bite at my tail, but managed fend off. In the later part of the race, as I felt the car becoming a little bit slack, I choose to play safe after consulting with the team, and thankfully managed to bring it to the finish. I found it extremely difficult to race along with GT500 cars, and honestly, I was driving around, saying to myself, “I want this to finish soon!” (grins wryly). I think I owe much to my senior teammate as dependable as Kobayashi-san for the result today. He’s way superior than me both in knowledge and experience, so I try to drive as naturally as possible and deliver my own feedback. That’s the way I can do for the team right now.