Fukuzumi Wins as Toyota Dominates Sunday Sprint

Nirei Fukuzumi scored victory for Rookie Racing as Toyota teams again dominated in the second leg of SUPER GT’s sprint race weekend at Fuji Speedway.

In the GT500-only contest that concluded the weekend, Fukuzumi grabbed pole in the No. 14 car driven on Saturday by Kazuya Oshima, beating the No. 1 TOM’S car of Kenta Yamashita, and maintained the advantage throughout the 50-minute race.

Yamashita shadowed Fukuzumi for the entire race, which ran to 34 laps with no cautions, but ultimately missed out by 0.728 seconds as Fukuzumi scored Rookie Racing’s first victory since 2022 and his first since moving from Honda to Toyota.

Completing an-all Toyota GR Supra podium, 20 seconds back, was the Cerumo car of Hiroaki Ishiura, who finished his final GT500 race at Fuji having announced plans to step down from the top class in the run-up to the weekend.

The battle for fourth was more closely fought, as Yuhi Sekiguchi’s SARD Toyota defended against the Team Impul Nissan Z NISMO of Kazuki Hiramine.

However, Hiramine was handed a ten-second penalty for earlier contact with the Racing Project Bandoh Toyota of Yuji Kunimoto at Turn 1.

While it looked like Hiramine might drop as low as eighth, fierce battling between fellow Nissan drivers Teppei Natori and Atsushi Miyake allowed the Impul driver to hang on to fifth place behind Sekiguchi even after the penalty was applied.

After several laps of side-by-side battling, Kondo Racing’s Natori was handed a five-second penalty of his own for forcing Miyake’s No. 3 NISMO car off-track at Turn 3.

That dropped Natori from sixth on the road to 10th behind Miyake, Giuliano Alesi’s No. 37 TOM’S Toyota, Riki Okusa in the best of the Honda Civic Type R-GTs, the Nakajima Racing car, and Katsumasa Chiyo in the No. 23 NISMO machine.

ARTA’s Nobuharu Matsushita had fought with Okusa in the battle to best of the Hondas, running as high as sixth, but eventually dropped out of the points to 11th.

Despite starting fourth, Kunimoto finished 15th and last, losing pace after the early contact with Hiramine and eventually coming in for a pit stop.

With four races to go, Yamashita and his co-driver in the No. 1 TOM’S Toyota Sho Tsuboi hold a lead of 19 points over stablemates Alesi and Ukyo Sasahara, with Cerumo pair Ishiura and Toshiki Oyu only a further half-point behind.

Fujii Completes GT300 Double for D’station

Tomonobu Fujii completed a double victory in the GT300 class for D’station Racing, following on from co-driver Charlie Fagg’s victory on Saturday.

Fujii qualified the No. 777 D’station Aston Martin Vantage Evo on pole for the standalone GT300 event, and after fending off an attack from the Inging Toyota GR86 GT of Yuui Tsutsumi on the opening lap, was never troubled at the head of the field.

Fujii and Tsutsumi finished 1.271 seconds apart, while the podium was completed by the LEON Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Togo Suganami, who recovered to third from eighth on the grid to limit the damage to the team’s points lead.

It means Suganami and Naoya Gamou, who also finished third on Saturday, take a 4.5-point lead into the second half of the season over Fujii and Fagg.

The Goodsmile Racing Mercedes-AMG of Nobuteru Taniguchi started second, but lost out to Tsutsumi on the opening lap and fell prey to Suganami on lap 22 of 31.

Taniguchi later slipped another place behind the Team Mach Toyota 86 Mother Chassis of Iori Kimura, who came through from ninth early on to take fourth.

Zak O’Sullivan finished eighth in the CarGuy Racing MKS Ferrari 296 GT3 behind Seita Nonaka (Saitama Green Brave Toyota) and Yuto Nomura (UpGarage Mercedes-AMG), but was later handed a 40-second penalty for consistent track limits abuse.

That dropped O’Sullivan to 17th, promoting Harry King (Seven x Seven Racing Porsche) to eighth, while Kei Cozzolino (PONOS Ferrari) and Kohei Hirate, coming from last on the grid in the Kondo Racing Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3, completed the top ten.

RESULTS: GT500/GT300