Sugo Qualifying Washed Out; Practice Times Set Grid

Qualifying for the fifth round of the SUPER GT season at Sportsland Sugo has been called off due to heavy rain, with the grid instead being determined by the times set in Saturday morning’s sole free practice session.

It means the No. 38 Cerumo Toyota GR Supra will start from pole position thanks to Toshiki Oyu’s chart-topping effort, leading an all-Toyota top four.

The Miyagi Prefecture track was already fully wet by the start of practice, and the one hour, 45-minute session was red-flagged six times amid the poor conditions.

However, the rain easing off after the second of those interruptions led to a relatively clean period of running in which the best times were all set.

It was during this phase that Oyu set his best time of 1:24.980, knocking off Toyota stablemate Nirei Fukuzumi in the No. 14 Rookie Racing GR Supra.

Shortly after that, the session was red-flagged for a third time as both the Goodsmile Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo and the apr Toyota GR86 GT both went off track near-simultaneously, although neither suffered significant damage.

When the session resumed, the rain had worsened to the stage that improvements were thin on the ground, and with a little under 30 minutes left on the clock, the session was stopped again due to the amount of rainfall.

An attempt was subsequently made to run the GT300- and GT500-only portions of the session, but a crash for Hisashi Wada in the R’Qs Mercedes-AMG caused the GT300-only session to be stopped immediately.

Not long after action resumed, Roberto Merhi’s Team LeMans Ferrari 296 GT3 aquaplaned off the road and hit the barriers with force at Horseback corner.

The GT500-only session was subsequently cancelled, leaving Oyu with the top spot ahead of Fukuzumi, while Sena Sakaguchi was third-fastest with a 1:25.320 in the Yokohama-shod No. 19 Racing Project Bandoh Toyota.

As qualifying proper did not take place, the usual bonus points for the top three qualifiers were not awarded, while Oyu’s pole does not count towards official records.

Sho Tsuboi was fourth fastest in the championship-leading No. 36 TOM’S Toyota ahead of the best of the Nissan Zs, the No. 12 car in which Kazuki Hiramine had at one stage been fastest before falling down the order.

Leading the Honda Civic Type R-GT contingent was Riki Okusa in the No. 64 Nakajima Racing car, the sole Dunlop user in the GT500 field, in sixth.

Honda’s top title contender, the No. 100 Team Kunimitsu car, was only able to set the 11th-fastest time with Naoki Yamamoto at the wheel.

In GT300, Shade Racing’s Toyota GR86 GT emerged with the top time of 1:29.389 courtesy of Katsuyuki Hiranaka, which was faster than two of the GT500s.

Hideki Yamauchi was second-fastest in the works R&D Sport Subaru BRZ, followed by the D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Tomonobu Fujii.

Completing the top five were the Team Studie BMW M4 GT3 and the PONOS Racing Ferrari 296 GT3, both of which like the Shade Toyota use Michelin tires.

An early crash for the No. 52 Saitama Green Brave Toyota GR Supra GT, which brought out the first of the red flags, left the car with unrepairable rear damage, meaning that Hiroki Yoshida and Seita Nonaka will sit out the race.

Sunday’s race is due to start at 1:30 p.m. local time (12:30 a.m. EDT).

RESULTS (Practice): GT500/GT300