ARTA MUGEN NSX-GT(#16) and UPGARAGE NSX GT3 Win the GT500 and GT300 Races, Respectively

There continued seberal races at Suzuka that had almost come our way but actually not in the end. Today, we could finally break such a jinx, and achieved the season’s first win. So, I feel some relief right now, honestly. I also have the feeling that the performance has just gotta be making suitable results.
As we had all cars make way to Q2 yesterday, it’s quite logical for us to aim at winning the race as well as making all cars score points. For that purpose, our strategy naturally focused on how we, as a team, could keep the top-ranked rivals from scoring points.
#8 car sadly ended up zero point, however, I think we could attain the desired end. We’d like to further raise our game towards the latter half of the season so that we can give more pressure to our rivals. We appreciate continuous supports from our fans. Thank you.

We’ve got a fantastic car for this round thanks to the team and everyone working in it. We’re the quickest yesterday in the qualifying sessions. So, we could start the race at the forefront, and that brought us this victory as big as it gets. Fantastic drive from Otsu-san, plus flawless teamworks, enabled me to keep my head perfectly cool for we had already built 15-sec. gap when it came my turn to drive.
I’d like to say, “Maiden win! Congratulations!” to Otsu-san. For me, it’s been long time since, so, I’m very happy too. This win, just at the returning point of the series, brought up our point ranking, but I think our performance has always been at the deserved level.
We’ll have more success weight from the next round, and yet, we have a very good chance to win the title, and we’ll go for it, for sure.

I’ve been participating in this series since 2018, in GT300 class at first, and had never won till today. I changed the team this year, and could finally win to my utmost gratitude.
Today, we started with the tires of a harder compound, and anticipated at the start that, “It’ll take time to put heat in the rubber.” I could hung on for the opening lap, and then, tires got wormed on Lap-2, I could pull away the gap from #23 car running 2nd.
My pit-in timing was just right upon FCY period, however, there’s a little shortage in refueling, so I had to do the fuel driving. As I still had a plenty of margin, concentrated on maintaining the position, it’s like eking out savings, and then, handed the car over to Fukuzumi-san. I think I’d done what I ought to do.

Car was good in the qualifying sessions, but we couldn’t go to Q2 because of some mechanical trouble. The 16th grid ain’t what we wanted, so, I was a little down last night. The team did a terrific job over the night and remedied the car for the race.
As far as the race tactics concerned, the pit-in timing was almost perfect with the FCY period, and the team did impeccable job all the way through to the end. I’m so grateful for them all. I think I was full of confidence and ready to drive at pace even before I started the race. On Lap-20 or so, I noticed something strange with the tires. That’s why I decided to come in earlier and switched to Koide. He did excellent drive, taking care of the tires for the rest of the race, and brought the best possible result for us.

It’s tough, if I put it one word. I didn’t do the qualifying run yesterday due to the machine trouble, which made us start the race from far back end. But, without any logical reason, I was thinking that we’d repeat something similar what we did in the season opener.
Kobayashi-san did the first stint pretty fine; his pace was good and made a lot of progress in the race order too before he came in. I knew my stint would be a long one, so I took very good care for tires. The timing of my pit-stop was more than perfect. I mean, I was headed for the pit lane when the safety car was deployed. I found myself running at the top when I returned the race, and all I had to do was to save the tires and receive the checkered flag. I’m very glad and relieved that I could do that.