No. 37 TOM’S Toyota Charges to Win in Sugo Thriller

TOM’S Toyota duo Ukyo Sasahara and Giuliano Alesi took a shock victory in Sunday’s SUPER GT race at Sportsland Sugo, charging through from 14th on the grid to become the first GT500 team to score multiple victories this season.

Sasahara fought his way up the order in tricky mixed conditions in the opening stint aboard the No. 37 Toyota GR Supra, pitting on lap 42 of 84 to hand over to teammate Alesi for the run to the checkered flag in the lead.

Alesi then sprinted away from the rest of the GT500 field to take the victory by almost 20 seconds ahead of the Cerumo Toyota of Hiroaki Ishiura and Toshiki Oyu, with the Impul Nissan Z of Bertrand Baguette and Kazuki Hiramine completing the podium.

Amid heavy rain, the start was delayed by nearly a full hour from its originally scheduled start time, with the race beginning behind the safety car.

Hiroaki Ishiura started from pole in the No. 38 Cerumo Toyota courtesy of Toshiki Oyu’s fastest lap in free practice on Saturday morning, with times from that session setting the grid following the cancellation of qualifying.

While Ishiura initially sprinted to a three-second lead once the race started in earnest on the fourth lap, he couldn’t keep the pace as the conditions started to improve, falling victim to Sho Tsuboi’s No. 36 TOM’S Toyota on lap 16.

Tsuboi saw a lead of around four seconds erased when the safety car came back out on lap 25, with Kazuya Oshima recovering to second after a slow start in the Rookie Toyota, with Sasahara having already fought his way up to fourth by this stage.

Sasahara was on the move when the race resumed on lap 32, passing Koudai Tsukakoshi’s Real Racing Honda Civic Type R-GT to move up to third immediately before picking off both Oshima and Tsuboi on lap 37 to move into the lead for the first time.

An off for the Gainer Nissan Z GT300 car prompted the majority of the GT500 cars to pit in before the appearance of a full-course yellow, which turned into another safety car period, with Alesi taking over from Sasahara in a crowded pitlane.

Alesi briefly dropped to third behind two cars, the Kondo Racing Nissan and the No. 8 ARTA Honda, that had opted to stay out, while two cars that had stopped earlier, the No. 23 NISMO Nissan Z of Ronnie Quintarelli and Yuichi Nakayama in the SARD Toyota, were temporarily promoted to a net second and third respectively.

Neither Quintarelli nor Nakayama could maintain the pace however, and after holding off a brief challenge from Nakayama, Alesi was able to start gapping the field.

Attention then turned to the battle for second as both Hiramine in the Impul Nissan and Oyu in the recovering Cerumo Toyota pushed up the order.

By the time all 15 GT500 runners had cleared their mandatory stops, Hiramine and Oyu found themselves battling over second place, with Oyu completing a daring move around the outside at the long final corner on lap 58.

By that stage however, Oyu was nearly eight seconds down on Alesi, and the gap would balloon to 19.957 seconds by the end of the race.

Third for Hiramine gave Impul its best finish of the year so far, while fourth place for the No. 36 TOM’S Toyota shared by Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita keeps them in the lead of the championship by a single point from Sasahara and Alesi.

Best of the Hondas was the Team Kunimitsu machine of Naoki Yamamoto and Tadasuke Makino in fifth, keeping the pair within six points of the lead of the standings.

A drive-through penalty for the Real Honda for a pitlane infraction dropped that car to seventh behind the No. 3 NISMO Nissan, while the Rookie Toyota slipped to ninth after Nirei Fukuzumi was penalized for going off course behind the safety car.

Both the SARD Toyota and No. 23 NISMO Nissan made second pitstops late in the race that dropped them out of the points.

LEON Racing Defeats PONOS in GT300 Nailbiter

Mercedes-AMG squad LEON Racing scored back-to-back wins in the GT300 class as the Naoya Gamou and Takuro Shinohara came out on top in a tense battle with the PONOS Racing Ferrari of Kei Cozzolino and Lilou Wadoux.

The first safety car had wiped out the advantage that Cozzolino had built in the early stages, the Japanese-Italian driver having battled his way through from fifth on the grid to take the lead early on.

Shade Racing’s pole-sitting Toyota GR86 GT had led the early running until Eijiro Shimizu was passed by Cozzolino at SP In, but a few laps later the Shade car shed its right-rear wheel and was forced to retire.

The LEON car was only sixth for the first restart but ended up vaulting to second by virtue of pitting on lap 41 of 79, just before the second caution period, while most of the team’s immediate rivals had come in earlier under green flag conditions.

Taking over at the wheel from Cozzolino, Wadoux soaked up the pressure once Shinohara had caught her, but the factory Ferrari driver finally succumbed to the Mercedes-AMG man at Turn 1 on lap 64 after a dozen laps of nose-to-tail action.

Shinohara went on to win by four seconds, giving himself and Gamou a commanding 15-point advantage in the standings as pre-race championship leaders Hibiki Taira and Yuui Tsutsumi could only manage eighth in their Inging Toyota GR86 GT.

Completing the podium was the D’station Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Tomonobu Fujii and Charlie Fagg, after Fagg battled his way back ahead of the Team Studie BMW M4 GT3 that Seiji Ara had taken over from Niklas Krutten.

Subaru scored its first points in a race of the season as Hideki Yamauchi and Takuto Iguchi brought home the R&D Sport-run BRZ fifth having started second.

RESULTS: GT500/GT300