Super GT: The OKAYAMA GT

[Plex]

The OKAYAMA GT 300km RACE, Round 2 of the 2007 AUTOBACS SUPER GT, was held at the Okayama International Circuit (one lap 3.703 km x 82 laps) in Okayama Pref. on April 8. The GT500 class winners were the 2nd fastest qualifiers, the ARTA NSX driven by Daisuke Ito and Ralph Firman, who ran virtually the whole race without ever giving up the lead.

In the GT300 class victory was claimed by the No.101 TOY STORY Racing apr MR-S driven by Kazuya Oshima and Hiroaki Ishiura.

GT500 Class
The race started at 14:00. The fair skies of the morning had clouded over by the time of the start and some of the teams could even be seen preparing wet-use tires on the grid. But it never did rain. The temperature at the time of the start was 18 degree C., with a track surface temperature of 25 degree C, the highest temperatures of the race weekend.

Just after the start, the 3rd position starter, Andre Lotterer in the No. 1 Houzan TOM'S SC430 tried to take the lead by taking the inside on the first turn. The pole starter, Ryo Michigami in the No. 18 TAKATA DOME NSX took an outside line through the turn but spun out and off the track. This left No. 18 at the very tail of the GT500 class trying to catch up. An apparent collision between two of the machines resulted in a drive-through penalty decision for No. 1. This put Ralph Firman in the No. 8 ARTA NSX in the lead. The 4th qualifier, the No.32 EPSON NSX driven by Loic Duval, was also able to move up as a result and the first lap ended with the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX (Dominik Schwager) in 2nd position and the No. 22 MOTUL AUTECH Z (Michael Krumm) in 3rd position. No. 8 ran successive laps in the 1 min. 24 sec. range and began to pull away from the following machines that were running in the 1 min. 25 sec. range.

On the 20th lap the No.23 XANAVI NISMO Z (Satoshi Motoyama) slowed down suddenly while running in 5th position. It was probably electrical system trouble that caused the machine's engine to stop and forced Motoyama to pull over and stop at the trackside. This was the second consecutive tragedy for No.23 in two year at Okayama.

After that a fierce battle for 7th position developed. The No. 39 DENSO SARD SC430 (Andre Couto), the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL Z (Kazuki Hoshino) and the No. 35 BANDAI DUNLOP SC430 (Peter Dumbreck) changed positions at the corners several times in a close-fought battle. There was no unfair play going on, but none of the three would give an inch as the competition raged until No.35 made its pit stop on the 30th lap.

From this point in the race the leaders began to make their pit stops one after another. No. 22 pulled into the pit on lap 33 and changed drivers (Krumm > Tsugio Matsuda) and No. 100 on lap 34 (Schwager>Shinya Hosokawa). The leader, No. 8, made its pit stop after lap 34 and Firman turned over the wheel to Daisuke Ito. On the same lap No. 32 made its pit stop and changed drivers (Duval>Fabio CARBONE).

No.100 RAYBRIG NSX By the time all the machines had finished their pit stops, No. 8 was again in front with an 8-second lead over No. 100 in second position. Close behind were No. 32 and No. 22, and as these two battled for position the gap between them and the two leaders began to widen.
It was on lap 51 that the contest between No. 32 and No. 22 was decided. On the Redman corner No. 22 passed No. 32 to reclaim 3rd position. From there, No. 22 began to close the gap on No. 100 and finally succeeded in passing it on the hairpin of the 57th lap to take over 2nd position.

But No. 22's charge wouldn't last. On the Atwood Curve of lap 77 it ran off track for a bit and suffered a considerable time loss. During that lapse No. 100 regained 2nd position. According to a comment by Matsuda after the race, there was bad coordination with the machines he was trying to lap that caused the loss. In any event, it was No. 8 that benefited most from the problems.

No.22 MOTUL AUTECH Z Taking the checkered at the end of lap 82, the No. 8 ARTA NSX team redeemed itself for the tragic first-round loss at Suzuka, when machine trouble caused them to drop out on the last lap after leading the entire race. This time they ran a perfect race with no trouble.

Finishing 2nd was the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX. Although for Hosokawa there might have been some regrets, having been passed by No. 22, it was still a solid performance with no real mistakes after that and thus a felicitous first podium finish for the team. The No. 22 MOTUL AUTECH Z team could not hide their disappointment despite their 3rd place finish, but they also saved the Z teams from the embarrassment of finishing in complete defeat after the No. 23 XANAVI NISMO Z was forced to retire from the race. Following the 4th place No. 32 EPSON NSX came the top SC430 finisher, the No. 1 Houzan TOM'S SC430 in 5th place. After losing much ground with the drive-through penalty in the early stages, Lotterer drove hard to bring the team back into the race. And, after the driver change, Juichi Wakisaka also turned in a great performance. As for the No.12 CALSONIC IMPUL Z team, for which this would be the last appearance of the Fairlady Z Turbo, they managed to finish in the points at 8th.

In the GT300 class, the third position starter, No. 62 WILLCOM ADVAN VEMAC408R (Haruki Kurosawa) ran off the track at the first corner of lap 15. Then the 4th starter, No. 43 ARTA Garaiya (Morio Nitta), also went off the track at the Atwood Curve, as the upsets continued. In both cases the cause appeared to be contact with other machines. The result was that the pole starter, No. 2 Priv_e KENZO Asset Shiden (Hiroki Katoh) and No. 101 TOY STORY Racing apr MR-S (Kazuya Oshima) in 2nd position were able to open up a big lead on the following pack.

Later, No. 88 AKTIO MURCIE RG-1 (Marco Apicella) was also forced to leave the track and retire from the race due to steering system problems. After moving up into 3rd position, the No. 13 ENDLESS ADVAN SENZAIKAKUMEI Z (Masami Kageyama) was penalized and lost considerable ground for machine contact that forced another car off the track. This put the No. 26 YUNKER-POWER TAISAN PORSCHE (Shinichi Yamaji) in 3rd position.

After its pit stop and driver change, the No. 101 (Oshima > Hiroaki Ishiura) passed No. 2 (Kato > Kazuho Takahashi) on their out-lap. In the last race, it had been Takahashi in the No. 2 machine who had passed Ishiura in No. 101 on their out-lap, but this time it was the exact reverse. Meanwhile, the No. 26 held on to 3rd position through their pit stop as they changed drivers from Yamaji to Nobuteru Taniguchi. From this point the lead machines went on to the finish with no change in order.

This result gave both drivers Kazuya Oshima and Hiroaki Ishiura of the No. 101 TOY STORY Racing apr MR-S their first SUPER GT victory. And for Oshima, who was born on April 30, 1987, this gave him the record for the youngest driver ever to win a SUPER GT race.



Results
1 8 ARTA NSX Daisuke Ito
Ralph Firman
2:01'14.759 82 BS 10
2 100 RAYBRIG NSX Dominik Schwager
Shinya Hosokawa
0'15.186 82 BS

3 22 MOTUL AUTECH Z Michael Krumm
Tsugio Matsuda
0'22.149 82 BS

4 32 EPSON NSX Loic DUVAL
Fabio CARBONE
0'29.361 82 DL 25
5 1 Houzan TOM'S SC430 Juichi Wakisaka
Andre Lotterer
0'31.586 82 BS +1

6 25 ECLIPSE ADVAN SC430 Takeshi Tsuchiya
Manabu Orido
1'00.300 82 YH +1

7 18 TAKATA DOME NSX Ryo Michigami
Takashi Kogure
1'00.663 82 BS

8 12 CALSONIC IMPUL Z Benoit Treluyer
Kazuki Hoshino
1'00.970 82 BS

9 35 BANDAI DUNLOP SC430 Naoki Hattori
Peter Dumbreck
1Lap 81 DL +1

10 17 REAL NSX Katsutomo Kaneishi
Toshihiro Kaneishi
1Lap 81 BS

11 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430 Yuji Tachikawa
Toranosuke Takagi
1Lap 81 BS 50
12 39 DENSO SARD SC430 Andre Couto
Katsuyuki Hiranaka
1Lap 81 BS

13 3 YellowHat YMS MobaHO ! TOMICA Z Sebastien Philippe
Masataka Yanagida
1Lap 81 BS

14 6 Forum Eng. SC430 Tatsuya Kataoka
Bjorn Wirdheim
1Lap 81 BS 10
15 24 WOODONE ADVAN Clarion Z J.P.L.De Oliveira
Seiji Ara
1Lap 81 YH

Classified (GT500: 57 Laps)

23 XANAVI NISMO Z Satoshi Motoyama
Richard Lyons
63Laps 19 BS 30

GT300 Class

1 101 TOY STORY Racing apr MR-S Kazuya Oshima
Hiroaki Ishiura
2:02'41.445 77 MI 15
2 2 Priv�e KENZO Asset Shiden Kazuho Takahashi
Hiroki Katoh
0'03.658 77 YH 20
3 26 YUNKER-POWER TAISAN PORSCHE Shinichi Yamaji
Nobuteru Taniguchi
0'09.193 77 YH

4 87 MARUHON MURCIE RG-1 Yasutaka Hinoi
Atsushi Yogo
1Lap 76 YH

5 110 GREEN-TEC BOXSTER GT Takuya Kurosawa
Hidetoshi Mitsusada
1Lap 76 YH

6 46 Houzan DUNLOP Z Kota Sasaki
Naoki Yokomizo
1Lap 76 DL

7 13 ENDLESS ADVAN SENZAIKAKUMEI Z Masami Kageyama
Tomonobu Fujii
1Lap 76 YH 40
8 62 WILLCOM ADVAN VEMAC408R Shinsuke Shibahara
Haruki Kurosawa
1Lap 76 YH

9 31 apr MR-S Kyosuke Mineo
Yuya Sakamoto
1Lap 76 MI +1

10 33 HANKOOK NSC PORSCHE Mitsuhiro Kinoshita
Yuya Sakamoto
1Lap 76 HK

11 5 KUMHO Proμ MACH-GO 320R Tetsuji Tamanaka
Hironori Takeuchi
1Lap 76 KH +1

12 7 RE AMEMIYA RX-7 Hiroyuki Iiri
Ryo Orime
1Lap 76 YH

13 77 CUSCO DUNLOP SUBARU IMPREZA Tetsuya Yamano
Takayuki Aoki
2Laps 75 DL

14 47 Houzan DUNLOP Z Shigekazu Wakisaka
Shogo Mitsuyama
2Laps 75 DL +1

15 55 DHG ADVAN FORD GT Daisuke Ikeda
Taku Bamba
2Laps 75 YH +1

16 11 TOTAL BENEFIT JIM CENTER F360 Masayuki Ueda
Hideshi Matsuda
2Laps 75 YH +1

17 43 ARTA Garaiya Morio Nitta
Shinichi Takagi
2Laps 75 MI

18 333 Mario ADVAN ISHIMATSU PORSCHE Katsuo Kobayashi
Takashi Inoue
3Laps 74 YH

19 19 WedsSport Celica Akira Iida
Yuhi Sekiguchi
4Laps 73 YH +1

20 70 NOMAD GAIKOKUYA ADVAN GT3-RS Yoshimi Ishibashi
Hiroshi Koizumi
5Laps 72 YH

21 66 triple a GALLARDO RG3 Naohiro Furuya
Muneyuki Kurihara
5Laps 72 YH

22 4 EBBRO 350R Tetsuya Tanaka
Shinsuke Yamazaki
6Laps 71 YH +1

23 9 LEYJUN DUNLOP MT900 OSAMU
Guts Jyonai
24Laps 53 DL

Classified (GT300: 53 Laps)

666 Rakuten BOMEX 320R Shogo Suho
Junichiro Yamashita
30Laps 47 YH +1

88 AKTIO MURCIE RG-1 Marco Apicella
Koji Yamanishi
58Laps 19 YH 5

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