Kunimitsu Honda Fastest as Sepang Event Kicks Off

Tadasuke Makino put the Team Kunimitsu Honda on top of the timesheets at the end of Thursday afternoon’s opening practice session for SUPER GT’s first overseas race in six years at Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia.

Makino, who shares the No. 100 Honda Civic Type R-GT with Naoki Yamamoto, set the benchmark time of 1:51.072 at the very end of the 90-minute session that marked the start of track action for the series’ first visit to Sepang since 2013.

That was comfortably quicker than the pole record of 1:54.306, set back in 2007 by Takashi Kogure, but still more than two seconds slower than the best times seen during private manufacturer testing at the Malaysian venue in January.

Virtually all of the best times of the session came in the final 15 minutes of running, reserved only for GT500 cars, with Makino beating the No. 37 TOM’S Toyota GR Supra driven by Ukyo Sasahara to the top spot by 0.152 seconds.

Third quickest was the Dunlop-shod Nakajima Racing Honda of Riki Okusa, another 0.242 seconds off the pace, with Tomoki Nojiri making it three Civics in the top four with a last-ditch improvement at the wheel of the No. 8 ARTA car.

Best of the Nissan Z NISMOs was the Team Impul machine of Bertrand Baguette in fifth.

Despite carrying a stage-two fuel flow restrictor, the No. 1 TOM’S Toyota was an impressive seventh-fastest with Sho Tsuboi at the wheel.

The GT300 class was topped by the wildcard No. 611 EBM Porsche 911 GT3 R, with Porsche Motorsport Asia-Pacific selected driver Dorian Boccolacci at the wheel.

Boccolacci, making his first SUPER GT appearance, set a best time of 2:03.382 towards the end of the opening hour, when both classes shared the track.

During the GT300-only running that followed, both of the JLOC Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2s closed on Boccolacci’s benchmark, with Yuya Motojima setting a string of improvements in the No. 0 car but falling 0.034 seconds short of the top spot.

Natsu Sakaguchi was third-fastest in the sister No. 87 Lamborghini, ahead of the Goodsmile Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo in which substitute Shunji Okumoto, also making his SUPER GT race debut at Sepang, was fourth-fastest.

EBM’s other wildcard, the No. 333 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, was only 17th fastest of the 19 cars in class, some three seconds away from the pace.

Both the 90-minute practice session and the 30-minute ‘Circuit Safari’, in which the SUPER GT machines shared the track with buses carrying spectators, that followed passed entirely without incident, with dry conditions throughout.

Another practice session follows on Friday at 10:30 a.m. local time (Thursday 10:30 p.m. EDT), with qualifying slated to begin at 4:30 p.m. (4:30 a.m. EDT).

RESULTS: GT500/GT300