Motegi run on half success weight #64 CIVIC captured Pole Position, #8 CIVIC finished 2nd
Mobility Resort MotegiNovember 2 (Sat) - 3 (Sun) — The eighth round of the 2024 SUPER GT series named as “MOTEGI GT 300km RACE” was held at Mobility Resort MOTEGI (Tochigi Pref.), and five CIVIC TYPE R-GT cars and a NSX-GT3 car participated in each of the GT500 and GT300 class. As in the original calendar, this race should have been the final round of the series and thus all the entrants were supposed to run without any success weight (SW), however, a measure was taken so as to reduce SW by half at Motegi because the fifth round was entirely suspended due to the Typhoon Shanshan and rescheduled, effectively as the final round, to be held in December.
It was predicted beforehand that the weather at Mobility Resort Motegi would break for the worse in the weekend, and sure enough on Saturday, the rain started falling down from early in the morning. At 9:00 a.m., when the cars were released to the track, the continuing rainfall made the condition even more difficult. As the rain got heavier, the morning practice session was repeatedly stopped by the red flag, and was finally called off at 10:35 a.m.
The official qualifying sessions in the afternoon took place under the heavy wet condition as well. #64 Modulo CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Riki Okusa) reenacted the top time marked in the practice also in the Q1 session run by the entire participants. Takuya Izawa who took over the car for the Q2 session wrapped up the time and captured the pole position that has been first for himself since the 2021 R3 at Suzuka and for Okusa in his career. The second slot of the starting grid went to #8 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Tomoki Nojiri/Nobuharu Matsushita) that marked the Q2 top time by Matsushita, making the front row monopoly by CIVIC TYPE R-GT.
The weather on Sunday turned fine from the morning, and at 1:07 p.m., temperatures at 22℃ for the ambient and 31℃ for the road surface, the race was started.
#64 car (Izawa) left from the pole position surrendered its position to #8 car (Matsushita) when the full-course yellow (FCY) was cleared. #8 car (Matsushita) took up the top position once but soon dropped back to 3rd when staggering upon another FCY release on Lap-10 after having been passed by #64 car (Izawa) and then by #36 au TOM’S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi).
#64 (Izawa), although retook the top position, had hard time to keep up its pace thereafter, allowing #36 car to get ahead on Lap-11, and then on Lap-18, passed by #38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Hiroaki Ishiura), and yet again by #8 car (Matsushita) on Lap-21.
At around the one-third point of the race, each entrant came in for driver change one after another. When the busiest part of the pit-stop move was over, #36 car led the race followed immediately by #38 car, #8 car (Nojiri) and then by #16 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Ren Sato) that had climbed up from the 6th grid. On the other hand, #64 car (Okusa) that had once led the race was falling back further away.
#8 car (Nojiri) sitting in 3rd now steadily kept up its pace and closed in on #38 car running ahead. The tail-to-nose chase lasted for almost 20-laps, then #8 car finally overtook #38 car on Lap-53 and rose to 2nd, but #36 car, the race leader, had pulled far away already at that time.
#16 car (Ren Sato) was the one that showed fierce catch up in the final phase. Chasing #38 car hard and assailed like hell, only to go run out of time and received the checkered flag in 4th. #8 car (Nojiri/Matsushita) finished 2nd, the best among the CIVIC TYPE R-GT runners, on down, #16 car (Hiroki Otsu/Sato) 4th, #100 STANLEY CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino) 6th and #64 car (Izawa/Okusa) 10th, a total of four CIVICs earned each share of the series points.
After the penultimate round, #36 car (Tsuboi/Kenta Yamashita) currently leads the drivers’ ranking with a total of 74-points and #100 car follows 18-points behind in 2nd. The final round at Suzuka will stage a four-way battle deciding the series title among the two teams above joined by two others, i.e., #38 car (Ishiura/Oyu) and #37 Deloitte TOM’S GR Supra (Ukyo Sasahara/Giuliano Alesi).
#8 car shod with the tires that matched well with the condition once run at the top, however, it had to allow #36 car to get ahead when FCY was cleared. This track is known to be very hard to overtake. If you had a slow car in your way, you can do nothing about it, just lose your time. Running away from the pole position should have been the best plot for us, however, we had allowed the worst opponent to get ahead of us. I mean #36 car, of course, and that’s the factor contributing to our defeat. #8 car dropped down to 3rd for once, but overtook #38 car coming back to 2nd, and after that, the pace was as good as the race leader, which makes me feel even more regrettable. At the end of the day, #100 car still has chance to win the title albeit with a huge point gap. The best we can do for the final round at Suzuka is to achieve the pole-to-win and rely on others for help. Just do our best as long as we have chance.
#8 car shod with the tires that matched well with the condition once run at the top, however, it had to allow #36 car to get ahead when FCY was cleared. This track is known to be very hard to overtake. If you had a slow car in your way, you can do nothing about it, just lose your time. Running away from the pole position should have been the best plot for us, however, we had allowed the worst opponent to get ahead of us. I mean #36 car, of course, and that’s the factor contributing to our defeat. #8 car dropped down to 3rd for once, but overtook #38 car coming back to 2nd, and after that, the pace was as good as the race leader, which makes me feel even more regrettable. At the end of the day, #100 car still has chance to win the title albeit with a huge point gap. The best we can do for the final round at Suzuka is to achieve the pole-to-win and rely on others for help. Just do our best as long as we have chance.
I watched Matsushita was overtaking Izawa, and thought his move cutting into the minimal gap was amazing, really! It made me pumped up even more towards my stint. If there’re some errors later on, he came back maintaining 3rd position, and I could focus on what I should do to raise our position. I had to run behind Oyu for twenty laps because I didn’t have clear edge over him. But, it’s nice I could pass him using very few chance I had. Defeat was defeat, anyway. I should’ve done better. This is an all-out battle that we’re fighting now as a whole team, right? Every one of us must have something that he or she can do. We have to take a step forwards, even half a step at least, for the final round at Suzuka. We’ll go for it, just to win!
I watched Matsushita was overtaking Izawa, and thought his move cutting into the minimal gap was amazing, really! It made me pumped up even more towards my stint. If there’re some errors later on, he came back maintaining 3rd position, and I could focus on what I should do to raise our position. I had to run behind Oyu for twenty laps because I didn’t have clear edge over him. But, it’s nice I could pass him using very few chance I had. Defeat was defeat, anyway. I should’ve done better. This is an all-out battle that we’re fighting now as a whole team, right? Every one of us must have something that he or she can do. We have to take a step forwards, even half a step at least, for the final round at Suzuka. We’ll go for it, just to win!
Our car was pretty good in the wet qualifying runs. But, it turned out to be a fine day on the race day, and we had to set up our car without any trial runs on the dry surface, even a single lap. Having said that, as we know Nojiri is one of the most trustworthy driver when it comes to the setting up of cars. So, I could rely on him about the balance of the car, and I did my part as necessary. It worked quite well, I should say. I took the top position when the first FCY was cleared, but I made a mistake after the second FCY period. Actually, I was delayed in the timing of the lift, and forced to pay the price, and that’s it. Today’s race can be summarized as such. If I hadn’t done the flop, could I be able to hold #36 car down or not? I’m not sure. But, I really feel sorry and frustrated that I couldn’t hand over a leading car to Nojiri.
Our car was pretty good in the wet qualifying runs. But, it turned out to be a fine day on the race day, and we had to set up our car without any trial runs on the dry surface, even a single lap. Having said that, as we know Nojiri is one of the most trustworthy driver when it comes to the setting up of cars. So, I could rely on him about the balance of the car, and I did my part as necessary. It worked quite well, I should say. I took the top position when the first FCY was cleared, but I made a mistake after the second FCY period. Actually, I was delayed in the timing of the lift, and forced to pay the price, and that’s it. Today’s race can be summarized as such. If I hadn’t done the flop, could I be able to hold #36 car down or not? I’m not sure. But, I really feel sorry and frustrated that I couldn’t hand over a leading car to Nojiri.
GT500 Race Result
Pos. | Num. | Driver | Machine | Time/Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 36 | au TOM'S GR Supra | Sho Tsuboi | 1:53'50.242 |
2 | 8 | ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #8 | Tomoki Nojiri | +20.513 |
3 | 38 | KeePer CERUMO GR Supra | Hiroaki Ishiura | +27.554 |
4 | 16 | ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #16 | Hiroki Otsu | +27.690 |
5 | 39 | DENSO KOBELCO SARD GR Supra | Yuhi Sekiguchi | +33.429 |
6 | 100 | STANLEY CIVIC TYPE R-GT | Naoki Yamamoto | +36.618 |
10 | 64 | Modulo CIVIC TYPE R-GT | Takuya Izawa | +59.079 |
14 | 17 | Astemo CIVIC TYPE R-GT | Koudai Tsukakoshi | +11 Laps |
GT300 Race Result
Pos. | Num. | Driver | Machine | Time/Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 88 | VENTENY Lamborghini GT3 | Takashi Kogure | 1:55'28.374 |
2 | 65 | LEON PYRAMID AMG | Naoya Gamou | +1 Lap |
3 | 18 | UPGARAGE NSX GT3 | Takashi Kobayashi | +1 Lap |
4 | 87 | METALIVE S Lamborghini GT3 | Kosuke Matsuura | +1 Lap |
5 | 7 | Studie BMW M4 | Seiji Ara | +1 Lap |
6 | 777 | D'station Vantage GT3 | Tomonobu Fujii | +1 Lap |
GT500 Ranking
Pos. | Num. | Driver | Machine | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 36 | Sho Tsuboi | au TOM'S GR Supra | 74 |
2 | 100 | Naoki Yamamoto | STANLEY CIVIC TYPE R-GT | 56 |
3 | 38 | Hiroaki Ishiura | KeePer CERUMO GR Supra | 52 |
4 | 37 | Ukyo Sasahara | Deloitte TOM'S GR Supra | 51 |
5 | 3 | Mitsunori Takaboshi | Niterra MOTUL Z | 50 |
6 | 39 | Yuhi Sekiguchi | DENSO KOBELCO SARD GR Supra | 45 |
7 | 8 | Tomoki Nojiri | ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #8 | 43 |
11 | 16 | Hiroki Otsu | ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #16 | 29 |
12 | 17 | Koudai Tsukakoshi | Astemo CIVIC TYPE R-GT | 26 |
13 | 64 | Takuya Izawa | Modulo CIVIC TYPE R-GT | 11 |
GT300 Ranking
Pos. | Num. | Driver | Machine | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 65 | Naoya Gamou | LEON PYRAMID AMG | 84 |
2 | 88 | Takashi Kogure | VENTENY Lamborghini GT3 | 73 |
3 | 2 | Yuui Tsutsumi | muta Racing GR86 GT | 64 |
4 | 777 | Tomonobu Fujii | D'station Vantage GT3 | 54 |
5 | 7 | Seiji Ara | Studie BMW M4 | 43 |
6 | 56 | Daiki Sasaki | REALIZE NISSAN MECHANIC CHALLENGE GT-R | 32 |
15 | 18 | Takashi Kobayashi | UPGARAGE NSX GT3 | 16 |
