The fourth round of the 2025 Super GT series also named as “Fuji GT Sprint Race” was held at Fuji Speedway (Shizuoka Pref.)

The event consisted of Race-1 and Race-2 taking place each on Saturday and Sunday together with the preceding qualifying session. A single driver had to complete the entire race distance in either Race-1 or Race-2. Race-1 was run on the 35-lap format (approx. 160km) by both GT500 and GT300 entrants. Race-2 was divided into two parts, a 50-min. sprint each for the GT500 and GT300 class. There was no mandatory pit stop, all the accumulated success weights (weight handicap) were removed, and half of the equivalent points were given to the drivers (the non-driving partner was also entitled to the same points.)

Race-1

Despite the weather forecast suggesting an impending typhoon (Krosa), the sky was clear from early in the morning on Saturday 2 August. Drivers participating in Race-1 (GT500/300 mixed run, 35-laps) were as follows:

#8 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Tomoki Nojiri)

#16 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Hiroki Otsu)

#17 Astemo CIVIC TYPE R-GT(Syun Koide)

#64 Modulo CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Takuya Izawa)

#100 STANLEY CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Tadasuke Makino)

After the official practice session in the morning, a 10-min qualifying session for the GT500 class was started at 12:10 p.m. in scorching conditions with the ambient and road surface temperatures at 33℃ and 54℃ respectively. Makino marked the 7th fastest time, the highest among the CIVIC TYPE R-GT entrants, and other four, Koide, Nojiri, Otsu , Izawa, followed behind from 12th to 15th respectively.

The race was started at 3:15 p.m. not much later after the qualifying session. Makino launched from 7th on the grid and maintained his position despite being nudged on the opening lap by #14 GR Supra, which subsequently crashed into the outside wall bringing out the Safety Car (SC). Koide jumped up from 12th to 10th after a brilliant start and was keenly waiting for the restart.

As the race was resumed on Lap-6, Makino fell back to 8th after surrendering to #37 GR Supra, then set to chase #3 Z NISMO that had also retreated back to 7th. He closed to within 0.3sec of #3 Z, but was not fast enough to overtake, and the gap began increasing as the race came to the midpoint. On the other hand, Koide who had been running 10th made a position up to 9th soon after the restart, and so did Nojiri twice, rising from 12th to 10th.

The race went into a sort of stalemate and no position change happened thereafter until the chequered flag on Lap-35. Makino finished the line in 8th, but was elevated to 7th after one of higher finishers was demoted with a time penalty. Koide and Nojiri finished 9th and 10th and were the other point earners in the Honda troop. Otsu and Izawa finished 13th and 14th.

Race-2

Race-2 was a 50-minute race exclusively for GT500 cars in which following Honda drivers entered:

#8 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Nobuharu Matsushita)

#16 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Ren Sato)

#17 Astemo CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi)

#64 Modulo CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Riki Okusa)

#100 STANLEY CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Naoki Yamamoto)

The qualifying session held in the morning saw Okusa marked the 6th fastest time, Matsushita 10th, and Tsukakoshi, Yamamoto, Sato from 12th to 14th.

Dark clouds loomed over the speedway as the start time approached and both ambient and track surface temperatures significantly lowered from the day before as the race was started at 4:50 p.m. While Okusa was overtaken and put back to 7th on the opening lap, Matsushita, on the contrary, raised his position not just one but two on the same lap, and closed in on Okusa running in front. Okusa quickly decided to change his race plan to the “wait-for-chance” mode behind Matsushita knowing his own tyres were much slower in heating up and therefore he could not match the race pace.

The Matsushita-Okusa duo then overtook #19 GR Supra which was seemingly struggling for pace, and came up to 6th and 7th, however, the speed of top-five runners ahead was too fast for them to catch up. Matsushita maintained the 6th position for a while even though the gap to the front runners was increasing. Okusa, on the other hand, surrendered his position to another car on Lap-12, then on Lap-14 to yet another, and finally dropped down to 10th on Lap-17.

Matsushita, who has been struggling to keep his 6th position, was also not safe. His pace gradually went down as the tyre wear progressed, which forced him to lose positions one after another from Lap-19 to Lap-21. Matsushita found himself running 9th just in front of Okusa who then passed him on Lap-28 to snatch 9th and went on to finished the 50-minute race (34-laps) in that order.

One of front finishers was given a 5-sec time penalty after the race, which made Okusa move up to 8th. Meanwhile, exactly the same penalty was imposed to Okusa, so the final results of the CIVIC TYPE R-GT entrants further down the field were settled as Matsushita 11th, Yamamoto 12th, Tsukakoshi 13th, Sato 14th.

At the end of the round four, the Yamamoto/Makino pairing added 2-points to their 5th in the overall point ranking, the top of the CIVIC TYPE R-GT camp.

GT500 Race2 Result

GT500 Team Ranking