Makino Feels Strategy Gamble Denied Shot at Finale Win

Honda driver Tadasuke Makino admits he feels Team Kunimitsu’s decision to send him out on old tires for his stint in last weekend’s Motegi SUPER GT title decider denied him a possible shot at giving the Civic Type R-GT a farewell victory.

Makino and co-driver Naoki Yamamoto finished fourth on the road in Sunday’s final race of the season from seventh on the grid, having gone into the weekend with an outside chance of GT500 title honors after their unexpected win at Autopolis.

However, that was after Kunimitsu made the unorthodox decision to send Makino out for the second stint without changing the No. 100 Civic’s Bridgestone tires in a bid to challenge the No. 1 TOM’S Toyota GR Supra of Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita.

While the move gave Makino track position, he was powerless to defend the lead from eventual race winner Yamashita on fresh rubber, and he then lost places to the Nissan Z NISMOs of Kazuki Hiramine and Katsumasa Chiyo in the following laps.

Makino was able to stabilize his pace after that, finishing a distant fourth in the Civic’s final race as Honda’s GT500 base model, which became third when Impul Nissan pair Hiramine and Bertrand Baguette were disqualified from second.

“This was my first time ever doing no tire change in a SUPER GT race,” Makino told Sportscar365. “I thought with the amount of pickup and everything, I was thinking in my stint, ‘oh my goodness, there will no chance to defend from other cars’.

“Pace-wise I think we were quite good compared to other cars. Naoki-san saved a lot of fuel in his stint. It’s difficult to say, but if I think if we changed tires at the driver change, I could have been able to challenge TOM’S for the win.

“We couldn’t win in this situation. It was really hard in my stint. But it is what it is.”

Kunimitsu race engineer Satofumi Hoshi defended the decision not to change tires speaking to reporters including Sportscar365, saying the tire specification chosen for the race was one the team believed would be capable of going the 63-lap distance.

“We went into the race knowing that to be champion, we had to win the race with the No. 1 car finishing third or lower, so in any case we had to get ahead somehow,” said Hoshi.

“We had been simulating the plan of not changing tires since practice, and in the race we were indeed able to get ahead as we had planned, although I thought we might be able to hang on without the pace dropping off a little longer.

“In the second half of the race we were able to run at the same pace as the No. 39 [SARD Toyota] that had changed tires. Our hope was that the cars that changed tires would use up the grip of running on new tires before they could pass us.

“If we had changed tires, it’s possible we could have got involved in the fight with the No. 23 and No. 12 [Nissans], but we knew the No. 1 car’s race performance would be extremely high and we thought that passing them on-track would be very difficult.

“As a team, we decided to adopt a strategy of trying to beat the No. 1 car. I’m sure the drivers are frustrated but perhaps if we had gone with a regular strategy and we still finished behind, they might be asking, ‘why didn’t we take a risk’?”

The Kunimitsu drivers finished runner-up in the GT500 drivers’ standings for the second year in succession, 17.5 points behind newly-crowned champions Tsuboi and Yamashita.

However, Makino said he couldn’t take any comfort in that fact amid the circumstances.

“For me, P2, P3, P4 in the standings… it doesn’t really matter if you are not champion,” he said. “I really wanted to win this last race. So it’s very disappointing.”