TOM’S Toyota Fastest Again as Official Testing Concludes

Toyota flagship squad TOM’S ended SUPER GT’s second and final official test at Fuji Speedway with the fastest time overall, although Honda’s brand-new HRC Prelude GT broke through to top Monday’s final day of on-track action.

Continuing the No. 36 Toyota GR Supra’s strong form throughout the winter, Sho Tsuboi set the benchmark time of 1:27.500 in the afternoon session on Sunday, with the majority of times coming in the final ten minutes reserved for GT500 cars.

Tsuboi outpaced Sacha Fenestraz in the SARD Toyota by 0.197 seconds to top that session and the test overall, while Igor Fraga was a surprise third-fastest in the Dunlop-shod Nakajima Racing Honda with a best time of 1:27.762.

Fenestraz handled driving duties for SARD solo on Sunday as Yuhi Sekiguchi was struck down by illness, but Sekiguchi returned to the cockpit on Monday.

Completing the top five on both Sunday and overall were the sole Yokohama-shod GT500 car, the Racing Project Bandoh Toyota in which Sena Sakaguchi set the fastest time, and the best of the Bridestone Hondas, the No. 16 ARTA car of Tomoki Nojiri.

It was the No. 16 ARTA Prelude that set the pace on Monday with Ren Sato at the wheel, Sato posting a best lap of 1:27.904 to eclipse Tsuboi by just over two tenths.

That followed Sato suffering two spins during the morning session, one at Turn 1 and the other between Turns 12 and 13, the latter causing a red flag.

Third-fastest on Monday was the Cerumo Toyota of Toshiki Oyu, who was a narrow second behind Tsuboi in the morning session, although his time was slower than that posted by rookie co-driver Rikuto Kobayashi on the opening day.

Nissan suffered a more difficult test compared to the previous outing at Okayama, with the best of Z NISMO contingent, the No. 23 car, in seventh overall.

Mitsunori Takaboshi set the brand’s best time of 1:28.074 to slot in just behind the Team Kunimitsu Honda of Tadasuke Makino, who made it three Preludes in the top six.

Completing the top ten were the Kondo Racing Nissan, the Rookie Racing Toyota and the Team Impul Nissan, all of those times being set on Sunday.

Subaru Recovers From Issues to Top GT300 Leaderboard

In the GT300 class, Subaru’s factory BRZ recovered from issues that limited its running on Monday morning to set the fastest time of both the afternoon session and overall.

After being hampered in the morning by a gearbox oil leak, Hideki Yamauchi set a 1:35.806 in the afternoon session to surpass the benchmark set on Sunday by Goodsmile Racing Mercedes-AMG driver Tatsuya Kataoka by almost four tenths.

The only other car to beat Kataoka’s 1:36.190 effort on Monday was the Inging Toyota GR86 GT in which newcomer Kazuhisa Urabe posted a 1:36.157.

Third on Monday and fourth overall was the new ‘Mark 2’ Gainer Nissan Z that was making its official test debut after skipping the previous gathering at Okayama, with Ryuichiro Tomita setting a best time of 1:36.198 in the reworked machine.

That followed Tomita setting the second-fastest time on the first day behind Kataoka.

Third on Sunday and fifth overall was the Pacific Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Yusuke Tomibayashi, continuing the team’s positive form from Okayama, ahead of the LM Corsa Lexus LC500 GT that topped the timesheets in the previous test.

Fastest in the morning session on Monday was the Team UpGarage Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Takashi Kobayashi on a 1:36.509, which put the team ninth overall.

After a relatively incident-free opening day of testing on Sunday — save for the No. 360 Tomei Sports Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 sustaining damage in a crash in the afternoon — several fancied GT300 runners hit trouble on Monday.

Among these was the PONOS Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo, which stopped on track early in the morning session with a suspected suspension problem, and although the car returned in the afternoon, it was only 26th of the 28 cars in class that ran.

Later in the morning session, the apr Lexus LC500h GT stopped on-track, causing a red flag, while towards the end, Souta Arao crashed the Team Mach Toyota 86 Mother Chassis at the Turn 6 left-hander, sustaining heavy rear-end damage.

The car did not reappear in the afternoon session.

Goodsmile’s Mercedes-AMG caused an early red flag in the afternoon after stopping on track, while another interruption came late on when the Seven x Seven Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo pulled off track with what appeared to be a puncture exiting Turn 2.

The new SUPER GT season begins at Okayama International Circuit on April 11-12.

RESULTS: Day 1/Day 2