#8 Team HRC ARTA MUGEN claims its first pole position of the season as HRC PRELUDE-GT locks out the top three grid positions
Fuji SpeedwayOn Saturday 1 August 2026, qualifying for Round 4 of the SUPER GT season was held at Fuji Speedway in Shizuoka Prefecture.
Qualifying
The 14-car Q1 session began at 2:53pm, with an air temperature of 32°C and a track temperature of 45°C.
In the closing moments of the session, the #17 Astemo driven by Yuto Nomura, which had also set the fastest time in the morning free practice session, went quickest. The #100 STANLEY of Naoki Yamamoto was P2, followed by the #8 Team HRC ARTA MUGEN of Hiroki Otsu in P3, giving the HRC PRELUDE-GT cars a clean sweep of the top three. The #64 Modulo of Riki Okusa was P5, while the #16 ARTA MUGEN of Tomoki Nojiri took P8, sending all five cars through to Q2.
Q2 began at 3:31pm, with an air temperature of 33°C and a track temperature of 48°C.
Late in the session, the #100 STANLEY driven by Tadasuke Makino went fastest, before Kakunoshin Ohta in the #8 Team HRC ARTA MUGEN improved on his time to secure pole position. In the final moments, Koudai Tsukakoshi put the #17 Astemo into P3, giving the HRC PRELUDE-GT cars the top three positions on the starting grid for the race.
Ren Sato qualified the #16 ARTA MUGEN in P5, while Igor Omura Fraga placed the #64 Modulo in P7.
GT500 Qualifying Result
Pos. | No. | Team | Driver | Time/Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 8 | Team HRC ARTA MUGEN | Kakunoshin Ohta / Hiroki Otsu | 1'26.776 (Q2) |
2 | 100 | STANLEY TEAM KUNIMITSU | Naoki Yamamoto / Tadasuke Makino | 1'27.078 (Q2) |
3 | 17 | Astemo REAL RACING | Koudai Tsukakoshi / Yuto Nomura | 1'27.325 (Q2) |
4 | 38 | TGR TEAM KeePer CERUMO | Toshiki Oyu / Rikuto Kobayashi | 1'27.502 (Q2) |
5 | 16 | ARTA MUGEN | Tomoki Nojiri / Ren Sato | 1'27.701 (Q2) |
6 | 37 | TGR TEAM Deloitte TOM'S | Ukyo Sasahara / Giuliano Alesi | 1'27.818 (Q2) |
7 | 64 | Modulo Nakajima Racing | Riki Okusa / Igor Omura Fraga | 1'27.944 (Q2) |
