ARTA NSX-GT finishes 5th

The very 4th round is to be fought in 450km-race distance, a 1.5 times longer than the usual rounds.

The brutal heat wave that had hit Kanto Region for a last few weeks was mercifully gone somewhere, and the race weekend at Fuji Speedway saw the cloudy sky further alleviating the ambient temperature up to 22 ℃, exceptionally low for a day in the mid-August. The entire runners tackled qualifying sessions with their tires carefully pre-warmed, however, NSX-GTs’ lap times equally remained low presumably because of success weights. Only #8 ARTA NSX GT driven by Nirei Fukuzumi made it for Q2, and Tomoki Nojiri taking over the car managed to get the 5th grid, the fastest entrant in the Honda camp.

On Sunday, the weather got slightly better, and the sun occasionally appeared from behind clouds by the early afternoon. A passing shower just before the start time caused no trouble, and the 450km-long race longer than usual distance was kicked off under the complete dry condition.

#8 ARTA NSX-GT (Fukuzumi) left from 5th grid, kept the position and soon brought it up to 4th when #38 ZENT CERUMO GR Supra fallen back by a penalty on 5th lap. Though Fukuzumi yielded the 4th position to #12 CALSONIC IMPUL Z, he later overtook #19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra, the pole sitter of the race albeit a bit slow in the race, and got the 4th place back into his hands again. Fukuzumi maintained his position till 37th lap, and came in to hand over the car to Nojiri as well as for a new set of tires and refueling.

Nojiri now in charge steadily kept his position, i. e., virtual 4th, and drove into the later half of the race, when #36 au TOM’S GR Supra catching up from behind sat on his tail, and Nojiri, running out of options after nose to tail battles for a few laps, finally surrendered his place and submitted to 5th  all over again.

Nojiri sustained his position thereafter, made a stop on 71st lap, but continued his stint with just refueling and tire change, and rejoined the track keeping the original 5th place.

#39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD GR Supra running at the apparent top thanks to the late-stop strategy made its stop on 80th lap, chose the “Splash & Go” (refueling only, no driver/tire change) tactic, and successfully returned in front of Nojiri. Once outdone by #39 Supra, Nojiri was shrewd enough to cling its tail and overtook it at Turn-1 on 83rd lap resuming the 5th place.

Nojiri further pulled away #39 Supra, securing 5th position, and completed the 99-lap race in the same order. #100 STANLEY NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino) and #17 Astemo NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Nobuharu Matsushita) finished within point-scoring placings, 8th and 10th respectively. Current point standings right at the turnaround mark of the season are; #100 car ranked 5th, 23-points behind from the point leader, and #8 car sitting on 7th, 2-points further behind #100 car.

In the GT300 class, #18 UPGARAGE NSX GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi/Kakunoshin Ohta) starting from 5th grid finished 3rd, and made their 2nd podium finish in the season. With this strenuous efforts, the GT300 duo now climbing up to 3rd overall will face the second half of the series.