Rasmussen Feels Apr Lexus Was “Taken Out” in Sugo Crash

Apr Lexus driver Oliver Rasmussen has shared his perspective on the contact with the D’station Racing Aston Martin that triggered the crash that caused last weekend’s Sugo SUPER GT race to be stopped, saying he feels he was “taken out”.

Rasmussen had been running sixth in the GT300 class on lap 44 aboard the No. 31 Lexus LC500h started by Miki Koyama, chasing down Tomonobu Fujii’s Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, when the two cars came together exiting the final corner.

Fujii ran wide as he tried the yet-to-stop R’Qs Mercedes-AMG of Masaki Kano around the outside, while Rasmussen followed in the slipstream of the Mercedes-AMG while also allowing the Real Racing Honda GT500 car to pass on the inside.

Rasmussen looked to have cleared Fujii when the recovering Aston Martin came across and made contact with the Lexus — causing Fujii to lose control and hit the wall, triggering the subsequent melee that claimed both the Shade Racing Toyota GR86 GT and the Nakajima Racing Honda Civic Type R-GT and brought the race to a halt.

While the apr Lexus initially continued, the left-rear wheel damage forced Rasmussen into the pits and into eventual retirement once the race was resumed.

Speaking to Sportscar365, Rasmussen made it clear he felt Fujii was solely to blame for the crash, as the Dane was driving “dead straight” at the time of the impact.

On a day that the sister LM Corsa Lexus won the GT300 class, the former FIA World Endurance Championship racer was certain a place on the podium was up for grabs.

“It was a really good race until then,” Rasmussen said. “The pace was there. The pure one-lap speed was not great but we were very consistent on the long runs.

“As the others lost grip, we were able to catch up, and I was making up ground in traffic. Maybe it’s because of my WEC experience but I seemed to lose less time compared to others when being passed by the GT500 cars.

“I knew it was a good chance for us, as we had very little success weight, and we were on for a good result. So it’s very frustrating to be taken out of the race like that.

“P3 was definitely achievable. There were still 40 laps to go and I was happy to be patient. It was the first weekend we had the chance to fight for something.”

Fujii was held responsible for the collision by stewards and was given a drive-through penalty that he was unable to serve due to the car’s retirement.

The Sugo race marked by far the best showing for the hybrid-powered apr Lexus of the year so far, with Rasmussen and Koyama having finished no higher than 12th in the opening five rounds of the season amid numerous incidents and reliability problems.

But Rasmussen is convinced that the next race at Autopolis, where the LC500h has traditionally performed well, will offer another chance to fight for a top result, saying that the team has made progress understanding its weaknesses.

“All weekend the tires worked well and the balance felt good,” said Rasmussen. “We hardly changed the setup the entire weekend except for one small change between warmup and the race to correct some oversteer we had.

“We figured out why we are struggling. Because of the GTA-GT300 rule changes this year, the car has a different aero map, and the changes were hampering our downforce levels quite heavily. This is the main reason we struggled so far this year.”