Sakaguchi Takes Pole For TGR Team KeePer TOM’s At Okayama
The #37 KeePer TOM’s Toyota GR Supra of 2017 GT500 Champion Ryo Hirakawa, and super-sub teammate Sena Sakaguchi, captured pole position for the opening round of the 2021 Autobacs Super GT Series, the Takanoko Hotel Okayama GT 300km Race at Okayama International Circuit.
Beautiful spring weather greeted every team, driver, and fan in the first official day of action for the 2021 season. Air temperatures for Free Practice that morning were down around 7°C to start, but by 2:00 PM local time at the start of Qualifying, the air temperature had warmed up to 15°C, with track temperatures at 33°C – much higher than in Free Practice.
And with all cars in GT500 running on a special Balance of Performance that includes a reduced fuel flow rate of 90.2 kg/h in order to control speeds, some had speculated if one manufacturer might hold an advantage based on the lean-burning capabilities of their engines. After qualifying, that advantage seems to be held by the Toyota fleet.
In Q1, all six of the Toyota GR Supras finished inside the top eight and made the cut to advance to Q2. They were led by Hirakawa in the #37 KeePer TOM’s GR Supra, who became the first driver all weekend to break the sub-1 minute, 18 second barrier by clocking in with a time of 1’17.966. Kenta Yamashita, making his full-time return in the new-look #14 Eneos X Prime GR Supra for TGR Team Eneos ROOKIE, finished 2nd in the session, ahead of Hiroaki Ishiura in the #38 ZENT GR Supra.
The big surprise was that none of the three Bridgestone-clad Honda NSX-GTs advanced into Q2, including the #1 Stanley NSX-GT of reigning champions Team Kunimitsu. Naoki Yamamoto and his substitute co-driver Hideki Mutoh – still filling in for Tadasuke Makino as he continues his convalescence – will start 11th. Mutoh missed the Q2 cut line by two-tenths of a second.
The new-look #17 Astemo NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Bertrand Baguette) just missed the cut in 9th – Baguette was bumped at the chequered flag by Heikki Kovalainen in the #39 Denso Kobelco SARD GR Supra, separated by just 0.017 seconds. Most surprising was the #8 ARTA NSX-GT (Tomoki Nojiri/Nirei Fukuzumi) down in 14th, after Fukuzumi had set the fastest time in Free Practice. Nojiri, who dominated last weekend’s Super Formula opener at Fuji, had to abort his final flying lap due to a suspected mechanical issue.
Also missing the cut were all four of the Nissan GT-Rs: The #3 CraftSports Motul GT-R (Kohei Hirate/Katsumasa Chiyo) came closest to getting into Q2, with Chiyo finishing Q1 in 10th, just 0.034s behind the cut line.
That set up the battle in Q2 between the six Supras, as well as the two Dunlop-clad Hondas, the #16 Red Bull Motul Mugen NSX-GT and the #64 Modulo NSX-GT. Unfortunately, the #19 WedsSport Advan GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Ritomo Miyata) dropped out of Q2 before Miyata was able to set a lap time – but this was a planned call by Team Director Masataka Bandoh, to save their set of tyres for the start of the race.
With less than two minutes left in the session, Sakaguchi gave it everything on his first flying lap, and jumped to provisional pole with a best lap of 1’17.701 – two-tenths up on Hirakawa’s Q1 benchmark.
It became clear that it was going to be a battle between the Toyotas for pole position. Sho Tsuboi in the #36 au TOM’s GR Supra was three-tenths off with his best lap. The last attacker was Kazuya Oshima in the #14 Eneos GR Supra, who broke into the sub-1’18 range, but finished just a tenth behind Sakaguchi’s best time with a 1’17.808.
That confirmed pole position for the #37 KeePer TOM’s GR Supra of Hirakawa and Sakaguchi, with the 21-year-old Sakaguchi grabbing the headlines in just his second start in a GT500 car. Sakaguchi was asked to move up from his full-time GT300 ride at K-Tunes Racing to fill in for Sacha Fenestraz at TOM’s, as Fenestraz has been unable to return to Japan due to visa issues.
“I want to thank everyone at TOM’s for calling me in as a substitute driver, and K-Tunes for giving their approval,” said Sakaguchi. “I was able to run in both of the official tests, so I felt like the car was really mine. The team and Hirakawa-san were so reliable and supportive, that all I had to do was go out and push hard. Hirakawa-san kept giving me advice right up to the start of Q2, and I was able to get pole position by just following his advice, so I am very grateful.”
“Last year I had to swallow my pride when our team’s substitute driver [Yamashita] took the glory of winning pole position, and this year the same thing happened,” Hirakawa laughed. “Since Sasha couldn’t be here, Sakaguchi took his place and did a great job in the official tests, and since the car had been set up in a condition that felt really good, I think everything went very well. Since the race isn’t until tomorrow, I can now be happy about our getting pole position and just think about driving hard tomorrow.”
Both drivers have won at Okayama before – Hirakawa won from pole in 2015 and won a second time in 2017, while Sakaguchi was credited with a GT300 class win on his series debut in the rain-shortened 2019 race.
In fact, it was a Toyota lockout of the top five places on the starting grid. The #14 Eneos GR Supra of 2019 GT500 Champion duo Oshima and Yamashita will start 2nd, sharing the outside of the front row – a great result for ROOKIE Racing in their first year as a standalone GT500 team.
Tsuboi’s Q2 effort put him and his senior co-driver Yuhi Sekiguchi third on the grid in their #36 au TOM’s GR Supra.
The #39 Denso GR Supra of Kovalainen and Yuichi Nakayama was 4th, and the #38 ZENT GR Supra of Yuji Tachikawa and Ishiura was 5th.
Then it was the two Dunlop-clad Hondas, but not in the order that they were initially classified: The #16 Red Bull Motul Mugen NSX-GT (Ukyo Sasahara/Toshiki Oyu) originally finished 6th ahead of the #64 Modulo NSX-GT (Takuya Izawa/Hiroki Otsu) in 7th, but Sasahara’s fastest lap was deleted due to a track limits infringement exiting Revolver Corner, placing the Modulo NSX 6th and the Red Bull NSX 7th, ahead of the stricken WedsSport GR Supra in 8th.
Pole position in the GT300 class was won by the #11 Gainer TanaX Nissan GT-R GT3 of Katsuyuki Hiranaka and Hironobu Yasuda, taking the top spot ahead of a number of favoured GT300-spec cars, including a trio of Toyota GR Supra GT300s.
The newest of those V8-powered GR Supras led their respective groups in Q1, with the field of 29 cars split into groups of 15 and 14 and the top 8 in each group advancing to Q2. Group A was led by sophomore Yuui Tsutsumi in the #244 Takanoko-no-yu GR Supra for Max Racing. Then in Group B, it was a Supra 1-2, led by the #60 Syntium LM Corsa GR Supra of veteran Hiroki Yoshimoto, ahead of the #52 Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave GR Supra of last year’s best GT300 rookie Kohta Kawaai.
Q1 saw a number of unpleasant surprises for a number of teams, with two big shocks in Group A: After Hideki Yamauchi set the fastest time in Free Practice aboard the redesigned #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport, co-driver Takuto Iguchi was left to wonder what happened when he was left to finish 10th in his Q1 group, leaving the new Subaru 19th on the grid. The #4 Goodsmile Hatsune Miku Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Nobuteru Taniguchi/Tatsuya Kataoka) will start a paltry 27th, after Kataoka struggled to a 14th place finish in his group.
Some other notables include French-Japanese rookie Giuliano Alesi in the #35 arto Lexus RC F GT3 (with Sean Walkinshaw), finishing 15th and last in Group A. Satoshi Motoyama will start 24th in his return to action, after rookie teammate Yoshiaki Katayama finished 12th in Group B aboard their #6 Team LeMans Audi R8 LMS GT3.
With Yasuda finishing 5th in his Q1 group, the #11 Gainer GT-R flew somewhat under the radar going into Q2, with Hiranaka making the run for pole, and several of last year’s title contenders ending up in the mix once Q2 kicked off.
The top runners in Q2 were able to break into the sub-1’25 range, and it looked as if Hiroki Yoshida in the #52 GreenBrave Supra would take pole position when he set his fastest lap of 1’25.362. But with two minutes left in the session, Hiranaka put together a quick lap of his own, and displaced Yoshida from the top spot with a time of 1’25.275 – which no other driver could match, giving Hiranaka his third career GT300 class pole position.
Since joining forces in 2018, Hiranaka and Yasuda have won four races in GT300 aboard their Dunlop-clad Gainer GT-R. But this is the first pole position for the number 11 Gainer crew since the November 2016 doubleheader finale at Twin Ring Motegi, when Björn Wirdheim won the pole in Gainer’s previous Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3. You have to go back even further to find the last pole position credited to Gainer stalwart Hiranaka, though – that was at the 2014 Motegi round.
“I really didn’t think we were going to get pole position,” said Hiranaka. “During the official practice and in Q1, the GR Supra GT was very fast, so I went into (Q2) thinking that we would be doing OK to get perhaps 10th position, so when I made my qualifying run and the times were so good, it really surprised me. Since we will be starting from the very front in tomorrow’s race, I want to work hard to keep that position so we will have a good race.”
“I also didn’t think we were going to get pole position, but Hiranaka-san ran fantastically well in Q2 and I am grateful for that,” said co-driver Yasuda. “I am glad that I will be starting from the very front in tomorrow’s race. I want to do my best to run a race that will thrill the fans who will have gone through so much to come here, and to everyone who will be watching on TV.”
The GreenBrave Supra of Yoshida and Kawaai, who won two times in 2020 and finished runner-up in the standings, will start the 2021 season from 2nd on the grid.
The #65 LEON Pyramid AMG of Naoya Gamou and Togo Suganami, who came close to a come-from-behind championship victory last year, qualified a solid 3rd.
And the #56 Realize Nissan Automobile Technical College GT-R of defending champions Kiyoto Fujinami & João Paulo de Oliveira ended up qualifying 4th, ahead of the two other GR Supra GT300s – the #244 Takanoko-no-yu Supra of Atsushi Miyake and Tsutsumi in 5th, and the#60 Syntium GR Supra of Yoshimoto and Shunsuke Kohno in 6th.
Rounding out the top ten in GT300 were the #96 K-Tunes Lexus RC F GT3 (Morio Nitta/Hibiki Taira) in 7th, the #2 muta Racing Lotus Evora MC (Hiroki Katoh/Ryohei Sakaguchi) in 8th, the #55 ARTA Honda NSX GT3 (Shinichi Takagi/Ren Sato) in 9th, and the #31 Toyota GR Sport Prius PHV apr GT (Koki Saga/Yuhki Nakayama) in 10th. The second Gainer car, the #10 Gainer TanaX with Impul GT-R (Kazuki Hoshino/Keishi Ishikawa), qualified down in 11th.
Sunday’s 82-lap race at Okayama is scheduled to start at 1:30 PM JST (local time), 5:30 AM BST / 6:30 AM CEST / 12:30 AM EDT / 2:30 PM AEST.
Images courtesy of the GT Association (GTA)
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