Nissan Ends Toyota Winning Streak at Suzuka

Nissan earned its first SUPER GT victory in over a year as NISMO pair Katsumasa Chiyo and Mitsunori Takaboshi won Sunday’s fifth round of the season at Suzuka.

From second on the grid, the occupants of the No. 23 Nissan Z NISMO came through to beat the second-placed Rookie Racing Toyota GR Supra of Kazuya Oshima and Nirei Fukuzumi by 5.768 seconds, putting an end to Toyota’s nine-race winning streak.

Completing the podium was the No. 3 NISMO car of Atsushi Miyake and Daiki Sasaki, with the pole-winning No. 16 ARTA Honda Honda Civic Type R-GT slipping to fourth.

Hiroki Otsu took the start of the 52-lap race from pole in the No. 16 Honda and maintained the advantage ahead of Takaboshi aboard the No. 23 Nissan, also surviving an early safety car restart after a crash for Shun Koide’s Real Racing Honda.

That came after Koide was forced off the road approaching the final chicane on lap four by Kondo Racing Nissan driver Tsugio Matsuda, who had fallen down the order after going off the road unaided at 130R.

Otsu continued to keep Takaboshi at bay until the pit window opened on lap 18, at which point both drivers dived in to hand over to respective co-drivers Ren Sato and Chiyo.

Swifter pitwork from the NISMO crew put Chiyo ahead, and when the third-placed No. 3 Nissan of Sasaki pitted the following lap, Miyake kept Sato behind on his out lap.

However, an even faster stop from Rookie Racing, whose No. 14 Toyota started seventh and climbed to fifth early on in the hands of Fukuzumi, catapulted Oshima up to a brief net lead before Chiyo swept ahead with his tires already up to temperature.

Oshima kept Chiyo under pressure, closing in to as little as 1.5 seconds at one point, but in the end the disadvantage of the No. 14 car’s stage one fuel flow restrictor told.

Chiyo went on on to claim Nissan’s first win since Takaboshi and Miyake’s triumph in last year’s Golden Week Fuji round, and his own first victory for two years.

Miyake ended up 16.5 seconds down at the checkered flag in third, keeping Sato bottled up for his entire stint, as Toshiki Oyu came through to complete the top five on board the Cerumo Toyota that started eighth in the hands of Hiroaki Ishiura.

Kazuki Hiramine occupied fifth for most of his stint after taking over the Impul Nissan from Bertrand Baguette, but lost out to Oyu, Sacha Fenestraz’s recovering SARD Toyota and the Nakajima Racing Honda of Riki Okusa, slipping to eighth.

Carrying the stage three fuel flow restrictor, Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita finished ninth in the points-leading No. 1 TOM’S Toyota, with their advantage in the championship now down to ten points from Rookie pair Fukuzumi and Oshima.

A slow puncture for the No. 37 TOM’S Toyota of Ukyo Sasahara and Giuliano Alesi meant the car didn’t score points, dropping the pair to fourth in the standings behind Cerumo duo Oyu and Ishiura with three races to go.

Kobayashi, O’Sullivan Take GT300 Win for CarGuy MKS

CarGuy MKS Racing took victory in the GT300 class courtesy of Rikuto Kobayashi and Zak O’Sullivan aboard the No. 7 Ferrari 296 GT3.

In just the newly-formed team’s fourth SUPER GT start, Kobayashi and O’Sullivan took a dominant victory, ending up over 15 seconds clear of their nearest rivals, LM Corsa Lexus LC500 duo Hiroki Yoshimoto and Shunsuke Kohno.

After taking over from O’Sullivan at the pit stops, Kobayashi found himself a net third behind Yoshimoto’s Lexus and Iori Kimura’s Team Mach Toyota 86 MC, as the Subaru BRZ that led early on dropped to fifth during the pit stop phase.

But two exceptional overtakes by Kobayashi, one at the chicane on Kimura and then another on Yoshimoto at Spoon Curve, set up an ultimately comfortable win.

Yoshimoto and Kohno claimed LM Corsa’s first podium finish since 2021, while the Subaru driven by Takuto Iguchi and Hideki Yamauchi recovered to complete the top three after Yamauchi passed Kimura in the latter part of the race.

Roberto Merhi looked to be on course for a top-five finish in the Velorex Ferrari before he suffered a spectacular puncture with a handful of laps to go, giving the place to the PONOS Racing Ferrari of Kei Cozzolino and Takuro Shinohara.

Further back, a puncture for the D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo while it was running seventh in the hands of Tomonobu Fujii denied he and co-driver Charlie Fagg a strong chance at moving into the championship lead.

The championship-leading LEON Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Naoya Gamou and Togo Suganami could only manage two points for 14th place, but extend their advantage over Fujii and Fagg to 6.5 points with three races to run.

Despite picking up an early drive-through penalty for a start infraction, the Seven x Seven Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Tsubasa Kondo and Harry King made up a massive 20 places from the back of the grid to claim seventh, the team’s best result so far.

Shade Racing’s Toyota GR86 GT was a non-starter after suffering a dramatic fire in pit lane during the pre-race warm-up session, the second such incident for the team this year after its car was also damaged in a blaze in a test at Suzuka in May.

RESULTS: GT500/GT300