ARTA’s Sato Gives Honda First Pole of Year at Suzuka

Honda scored its first pole position of the SUPER GT season at Suzuka as Ren Sato delivered on the No. 16 ARTA car’s favorite status to top Saturday’s pole shootout.

Taking advantage of the No. 16 Honda Civic Type R-GT carrying no success weight for this weekend’s fifth round of the season, Hiroki Otsu was second-fastest in Q1 before handing over to Sato, who had been fastest in practice, for Q2.

Sato duly lived up to expectations as he produced a 1:45.377 on his attack lap, which was good enough to secure his first SUPER GT pole by 0.187 seconds ahead of the best of the Nissan Z NISMO contingent, the No. 23 car driven by Katsumasa Chiyo.

Atsushi Miyake made it two NISMO-run Nissans in the top three in the No. 3 Z, ahead of the Yokohama-shod Kondo Racing example of Teppei Natori.

Team Impul’s Nissan had topped Q1 courtesy of Kazuki Hiramine, but Bertrand Baguette was only able to set the fifth-fastest time come the pole shootout.

Two days on from announcing his impending GT500 retirement, Takuya Izawa made it out of Q1 in the Dunlop-equipped Nakajima Racing Honda, before his co-driver Riki Okusa went on to record the sixth-fastest time in Q2.

Toyota’s chances of scoring a record-extending tenth GT500 win a in a row look to be hanging by a thread as the best of its cars could only qualify seventh, with Kazuya Oshima leading the GR Supra charge in Q2 aboard the Rookie Racing car.

Naoki Yamamoto had originally qualified seventh in the Team Kunimitsu Honda, but lost his best lap to a track limits violation, dropping to tenth behind the Cerumo Toyota and the Racing Project Bandoh Toyota that also lost its fastest time.

The championship-leading No. 1 TOM’S Toyota, carrying a stage-three fuel flow restrictor, dropped out in Q1 with Kenta Yamashita only able to qualify 13th.

Subaru Scores First GT300 Pole in Two Years

In GT300, Subaru ended a two-year pole drought as Hideki Yamauchi blitzed Q2 at the wheel of the factory R&D Sport BRZ he shares with Takuto Iguchi.

Yamauchi set a time of 1:56.869 in Q2 to grab the top spot for Subaru for the first time since the August Suzuka round in 2023, also taking the record for the most pole positions in the lower class (15) that he had jointly-held with Shinichi Takagi.

Rikuto Kobayashi was second-fastest at the wheel of the CarGuy MKS Racing Ferrari 296 GT3, some three tenths behind, while ex-Honda driver Iori Kimura put the Team Mach Toyota 86 Mother Chassis machine an impressive third-fastest.

Fresh off the team dominating the Fuji sprint event earlier this month, Tomonobu Fujii qualified the title-contending D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo fifth behind the LM Corsa Lexus LC500 of Hiroki Yoshimoto.

The championship-leading LEON Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo meanwhile could only manage 13th in Q2 with Togo Suganami at the wheel.

Sunday’s 300km race, which will run to a distance of 52 laps, is due to begin at 3:30 p.m. local time (2:30 a.m. EDT).

RESULTS: GT500/GT300