Subaru’s Iguchi Escapes Autopolis Crash Unharmed

Subaru has confirmed that Takuto Iguchi escaped unharmed from his scary crash in the closing stages of Sunday’s Autopolis SUPER GT race, with brake failure suspected to be the reason behind the incident involving the factory BRZ.

Iguchi lost control of the No. 61 Subaru BRZ at the Turn 10 left-hand hairpin on lap 81, making heavy contact with an unprotected armco barrier.

The incident caused the fourth and final safety car period of what had been an incident-packed race, with action not resuming thereafter as only 15 minutes of the three-hour duration was left on the clock at the time of the crash.

Subaru general manager Masahiro Ozawa confirmed that Iguchi escaped the crash unharmed, and explained that brake failure was suspected to be the cause.

“From what [Iguchi] said, the brakes weren’t working,” Ozawa told Sportscar365. “The rear brakes locked, so it appeared there was some kind of trouble with the front brakes. It seemed that some fluid that had leaked, so that could be the cause.”

Prior to the crash, Iguchi appeared on course to bring home the Subaru in fifth place, which would have matched the team’s best result of a difficult season so far.

That was despite the fact that the Subaru was one of a number of lead contenders to lose ground when the third safety car period of the race, as the team hadn’t cleared its second mandatory pitstop at this stage.

“The Dunlop tires seemed to really work well in these track conditions, and I think we set up the car well too,” said Ozawa of the performance showed by the BRZ.

“Starting 18th, I didn’t think we would have any chance of a top result, but surprisingly we were able to pass other cars at what is usually a difficult track to overtake at.

“We were just about to make the second pitstop when the safety car came out, so that hurt us quite a lot. Until that point we were fighting with the No. 88 [Lamborghini] that won the race. But even after that, we were still in the running for a top five.”

Ozawa expressed confidence that the R&D Sport-run Subaru operation will be able to repair the BRZ in time for the penultimate round of the season at Motegi in two weeks’ time, although he admitted concern about the nature of the failure.

“The chassis itself doesn’t appear to be too badly damaged, so a two-week interval should be plenty of time to repair the car,” said Ozawa.

“But we still don’t know the exact cause of the failure, and as long as we don’t know the cause, it’s difficult to be too confident that we will definitely be able to race.”