ARTA MUGEN NSX-GT Finishes on the Podium in 3rd Place and UPGARAGE NSX GT3 Wins in the GT300 class

Okayama International Circuit

April 15 (Sat) - 16 (Sun) — The first round of the 2023 SUPER GT series was held at Okayama International Circuit (Okayama Pref.) and five NSX-GT cars of the 2023 spec and two NSX-GT3 cars participated in each of the GT500 and GT300 class.

ARTA MUGEN NSX-GT Finishes on the Podium in 3rd Place and UPGARAGE NSX GT3 Wins in the GT300 class

As the 2023 regulation bans any development of cars, the latest NSX-GT models cannibalized the fundamental components from the previous season except for the engine that was optimized for the carbon neutral fuel (CNF) instead of the conventional high-octane gasoline.

#8 ARTA MUGEN NSX-GT car had reportedly suffered an unidentified torque-steering phenomenon and had its monocoque replaced with new one, for which the regulation is to impose a 5-second stop penalty in the race.

Race weekend at Okayama International Circuit was unfortunately struck by the rough weather derived by an atmospheric depression passing by as it grew on the way. On Saturday, free practice sessions were carried out in the full-wet condition, however, the weather recovered in the afternoon and it made Q1 session for the GT500 class extremely difficult because the track surface quickly dried out on every other lap accumulated. Results of Q1 were; #100 STANLEY NSX-GT (Tadasuke Makino) marked the 2nd best time followed immediately by #64 Modulo NSX-GT (Takuya Izawa) in 3rd and #8 ARTA (Tomoki Nojiri) in 8th, these three NSX-GTs proceeded to Q2.

In the Q2 session, the tarmac has got even drier making the tire choice very tricky, where the rookie of NSX corps, Kakunoshin Ohta showed brilliant attack bringing #64 Modulo NSX to the 3rd grid. #8 ARTA NSX (Toshiki Oyu) marked 7th fastest despite the tire temperature not up to the desirable level, and #100 STANLEY NSX (Naoki Yamamoto) came in 8th.

The race on Sunday showed chaotic consequences. The sky that had been clear till then suddenly turned dark right before the formation lap and came the rain when green lights on. #100 STANLEY NSX (Makino) left from 8th grid threaded its way through some messy proceedings in the opening laps, and climbed up to 3rd on Lap-3. #64 Modulo NSX (Izawa) on the contrary, failing to put heat in the rubber, could not pick up the pace and surrendered its positions one after another. #8 ARTA NSX (Oyu) left from 7th grid cleared the 5-sec. stop penalty on Lap-5 and dropped back, hugely.

When the race run ten laps or so, the wether got rough and it rained even harder. Many cars came in for rain tires, but on Lap-23 as the race was restarted, clouds gradually went off and the sun begun beating down on the track.

In such a confused situation, #100 STANLEY NSX (Makino) once leading the race albeit briefly dropped down several places, and instead, #8 ARTA NSX (Oyu) has doggedly crept up its position. The weather was changeable as ever, plus many accidents inducing Full Course Yellow (FCY) and Safety Car (SC) at each time around as well as a couple of Red Flags, turning the later half of the race into a total jumble. #8 ARTA NSX (Oyu) was pitted on Lap-41 that eventually became the best possible timing, and Nojiri taking over the stint steadily gained position every time when a tangle occurred. He finally climbed up to 3rd when the race was red-flagged for the day on Lap-62 and led #8 ARTA NSX to the season’s first podium finish. #17 Astemo NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi / Nobuharu Matsushita) finished 7th and #64 Modulo NSX (Izawa / Ohta) in 10th, both within the point-scoring placing.

In addition, #18 UPGARAGE NSX GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi / Syun Koide) achieved the GT300 class win.

Masahiro Saiki

HRC SGT Large Project Leader

The race was tossed about by the rough weather in which #8 ARTA could get 3rd finish by Nojiri and Oyu all despite of the penalty due to chassis change. It’s a good start to make the final season of NSX-GT concluded in a glorious way. Changing the monocoque to a new one doesn’t mean performance upgrade, never. The problem we had was a sort of situation, let’s say, the higher the vehicle speed gets the more corrective steering action is required, something like that. The decision we made was more or less on safety reason, and we’re ready to get penalty for that. All other NSX-GT cars showed strong pace in such a turbulent condition and it made us very positive towards the season ahead. We thank you in advance for your continuous support.

Tomoki Nojiri ⁸

ARTA

We’d known beforehand that we’d have 5-sec. stop penalty, and it made us go little bit easy on racing. “If we did good, we could get some points,” that’s what I thought. Besides, I was telling in my mind, “We may have chance if things went well for us,” because the weather would get wild today. All in all, the strategy and decisions made by the team in the race full of mishaps turned out to be good ones. It’s the first race that I partnered with Oyu, but our teamwork was excellent indeed and we’d done no mistake. This combination is strong, for sure. I’m already looking forward to the championship title.

Toshiki Oyu ⁸

ARTA

It’s a 100-point, full mark race, for me, yes! I felt tires were a bit hard at the start, and on top of it, there’s the penalty that we’d have to deal with. So, I thought to myself, it’s a long way to go, and I’d go free of mistake. As the condition getting bad to worse, I think I did a pretty good job, in both making the circumstantial judgements and managing tires correctly. I did all what I could do, gained some positions and handed the car over to Nojiri-san. It was an extremely good race for the penalty we’re given in the first place.

Takashi Kobayashi ¹⁸

UPGARAGE NSX GT3

In the qualifying session yesterday, the Red Flag timing was worst for us so that we couldn’t go to Q2. I thought we’re not going to make it with such a low grid position. But, as we learnt from the weather forecast telling some rainfalls involved on Sunday, we talked with the team on the strategy, and tried to be best prepared for whatever happened in the race. I think such an approach worked extremely well. When we noticed the first drop of rain, we immediately came in for wet tires, and it was the right decision to make. Better still, we could make driver switch just as the track begun drying and it helped us to get the top. It happens to be the 100th race for me, and we could celebrate this timely win with the team, which I think is a gift from heaven.

Syun Koide ¹⁸

UPGARAGE NSX GT3

Honestly speaking, I’ve never imagined we’d ever win for this time. It’s my debut season in the GT300 class, and I could win the very first race. Excellent start that I can’t ask for more. Last year, I’d won the FIA-F4 title, and I’d like to do the same in this class yet again this year. I have some positive feelings in this season, without any ground to believe so. I try my best not to have these feelings end up in overconfidence, and will do whatever I can do to produce decent results.

GT500 Race Result

Pos.	Num.	Machine	Driver	Time
1	23	MOTUL AUTECH Z	Tsugio MATSUDA Ronnie QUINTARELLI	2:44'47.342
2	3	Niterra MOTUL Z	Katsumasa CHIYO Mitsunori TAKABOSHI	+1.496
3	8	ARTA MUGEN NSX-GT	Tomoki NOJIRI Toshiki OYU	+4.788
4	14	ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra	Kazuya OSHIMA Kenta YAMASHITA	+7.077
5	38	ZENT CERUMO GR Supra	Yuji TACHIKAWA Hiroaki ISHIURA	+14.372
6	1	MARELLI IMPUL Z	Kazuki HIRAMINE Bertrand BAGUETTE	+18.942
7	17	Astemo NSX-GT	Koudai TSUKAKOSHI Nobuharu MATSUSHITA	+22.578

10	64	Modulo NSX-GT	Takuya IZAWA Kakunoshin OHTA	+35.881
11	16	ARTA MUGEN NSX-GT	Nirei FUKUZUMI Hiroki OTSU	+11.614
12	100	STANLEY NSX-GT	Naoki YAMAMOTO Tadasuke MAKINO	+1 Lap

GT300 Race Result

Pos.	Num.	Machine	Driver	Time
1	18	UPGARAGE NSX GT3	Takashi KOBAYASHI Syun KOIDE	2:45'26.030
2	65	LEON PYRAMID AMG	Naoya GAMOU Takuro SHINOHARA	+3.592
3	244	HACHI-ICHI GR Supra GT	Kimiya SATO Atsushi MIYAKE	+15.613
4	27	Yogibo NSX GT3	Yugo IWASAWA Reimei ITO	+17.778
5	52	SAITAMATOYOPET GB GR Supra GT	Hiroki YOSHIDA Kohta KAWAAI	+23.343
6	7	Studie BMW M4	Seiji ARA Bruno SPENGLER	+26.255

GT500 Standing

Pos.	Num.	Driver	Machine	Pts
1	23	Tsugio MATSUDA Ronnie QUINTARELLI	MOTUL AUTECH Z	21
2	3	Katsumasa CHIYO Mitsunori TAKABOSHI	Niterra MOTUL Z	15
3	8	Tomoki NOJIRI Toshiki OYU	ARTA MUGEN NSX-GT	11
4	14	Kazuya OSHIMA Kenta YAMASHITA	ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra	8
5	38	Yuji TACHIKAWA Hiroaki ISHIURA	ZENT CERUMO GR Supra	6
6	1	Kazuki HIRAMINE Bertrand BAGUETTE	MARELLI IMPUL Z	5
7	17	Koudai TSUKAKOSHI Nobuharu MATSUSHITA	Astemo NSX-GT	4

10	64	Takuya IZAWA Kakunoshin OHTA	Modulo NSX-GT	1

GT300 Standing

Pos.	Num.	Driver	Machine	Pts
1	18	Takashi KOBAYASHI Syun KOIDE	UPGARAGE NSX GT3	20
2	65	Naoya GAMOU Takuro SHINOHARA	LEON PYRAMID AMG	16
3	244	Kimiya SATO Atsushi MIYAKE	HACHI-ICHI GR Supra GT	11
4	27	Yugo IWASAWA Reimei ITO	Yogibo NSX GT3	8
5	52	Hiroki YOSHIDA Kohta KAWAAI	SAITAMATOYOPET GB GR Supra GT	6
6	7	Seiji ARA Bruno SPENGLER	Studie BMW M4	5