Toyota Locks Out Podium in Wild Okayama Opener

TOM’S pair Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita came away with a victory in an eventful SUPER GT season opener at Okayama in mixed conditions, leading an all-Toyota podium ahead of the Rookie Racing and SARD crews.

Tsuboi and Yamashita’s No. 1 Toyota GR Supra emerged from an 82-lap race that started in the wet and was interrupted by a red flag and multiple safety car periods to win by 2.8 seconds from the pole-winning Rookie Toyota of Kazuya Oshima and Nirei Fukuzumi.

SARD pair Yuhi Sekiguchi and Sacha Fenestraz finished fourth on the road but were promoted to the final spot on the podium by a 10-second time penalty for the second of the TOM’S cars, the No. 37 of Ukyo Sasahara and Giuliano Alesi.

The race began behind the safety car amid the poor conditions, and shortly after the field was released at the start of lap five, a multi-car crash involving the Cerumo Toyota, No. 16 ARTA Honda and Team Impul Nissan Z caused the race to be red-flagged.

Hiroaki Ishiura triggered the incident as he spun exiting Turn 1, with Katsumasa Chiyo’s NISMO car narrowly avoiding him, while Ren Sato in the ARTA Civic Type R-GT and Bertrand Baguette in the Impul car powerless to avoid the stricken Cerumo car.

Sato and Baguette walked away from the incident, while Ishiura was taken to the medical centre as a precaution but was cleared of any major injury.

After a 35-minute delay, the race resumed behind the safety car with Fukuzumi leading Tsuboi, but on the first lap of green-flag running on lap 11, reigning champion Tsuboi pounced on Fukuzumi to take the lead at Redman Corner.

The safety car reappeared on lap 14 as Daiki Sasaki got his No. 3 NISMO Nissan beached in the gravel at Turn 1, before the race resumed on lap 19, finally settling down following a brief full-course yellow period to retrieve the D’station Racing Aston Martin.

Tsuboi began to stretch his advantage over Fukuzumi, with Tadasuke Makino running third in the Team Kunimitsu Honda having passed Teppei Natori’s Yokohama-shod Kondo Racing Nissan at the very start of the race.

Natori was unable to maintain the pace and began to slip down the field, while Koudai Tsukakoshi’s Real Racing Honda and Ukyo Sasahara’s TOM’S Toyota soon moved up to fourth and fifth, having started down in 11th and 14th respectively.

Sasahara made it a provisional Toyota podium lockout as he passed Tsukakoshi and a struggling Makino, who was first to pit on lap 33 for a fresh set of wet Bridgestones.

The remainder of the GT500 field pitted for new wet tires over the course of the next 20 laps, performing their mandatory driver changes, but in the closing stages the track dried out enough for slicks to become a viable option.

Race leader Tsuboi had been one of the last to pit on lap 52, one lap later than Fukuzumi, but on lap 55 Naoki Yamamoto, now at the wheel of the Kunimitsu Honda started by Makino, became the first GT500 driver to change on to dry-weather tires.

Yamashita and Oshima, now driving the No. 1 TOM’S and Rookie Toyotas respectively, were among the last cars to switch to slicks on laps 62 and 63, before the safety car was deployed for a fourth and final time as Sena Sakaguchi’s Racing Project Bandoh came to a halt at Attwood Curve with its brakes on fire.

However, Oshima was powerless to threaten the race leader at the final restart, with Yamashita coming through to take he and Tsuboi’s fourth win as a duo and third in succession, including last year’s final two races at Motegi and Suzuka.

Giuliano Alesi maintained third place in the No. 37 TOM’S car started by Sasahara, but an earlier 10-second penalty picked up when Sasahara nudged the Nakajima Racing Honda of Riki Okusa into the gravel at Turn 1 on lap 19 cost the car a podium.

That meant a late battle between the Real Honda, now in the hands of newcomer Shun Koide, and the recovering No. 8 ARTA Honda of Nobuharu Matsushita became one for third place, with Fenestraz close behind in the SARD Toyota.

Fenestraz, who earlier in his stint survived a brush with the barriers exiting Piper Corner, was able to take advantage of Matsushita forcing Koide slightly wide at the hairpin on the last lap, passing both Honda drivers to give he and Sekiguchi third place.

At the very next corner, contact between Matsushita and Koide put the Real Honda into the barriers, an incident for which Matsushita was held responsible by the stewards, earning he and teammate Tomoki Nojiri a 40-second time penalty.

That promoted Yamamoto and Makino back to fourth place, with Sasahara and Alesi fifth.

Nissan’s top finisher was the No. 23 NISMO car of Chiyo, who spun early on, and Mitsunori Takaboshi in sixth place, followed by the penalized No. 8 ARTA Honda, while the Real Honda was still classified eighth after Koide’s crash.

LEON Racing Secures Controversial GT300 Victory

In GT300, victory went to the LEON Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Naoya Gamou and Togo Suganami, but only after Gamou picked up a time penalty for a collision with the Team UpGarage Mercedes-AMG in the closing stages.

After the final safety car restart, Takashi Kobayashi led the field aboard the No. 18 car started by Honda junior driver Yuto Nomura, which had jumped up the order after becoming one of the first teams to change to slick tires on lap 47.

LEON meanwhile had opted not to change tires at its first stop, when team returnee Suganami handed over to Gamou on lap 43, before the improving conditions forced Gamou back into the pits for slick Bridgestones on lap 55.

Kobayashi, with his Yokohamas already up to temperature, swept past Gamou to take the lead while the LEON car was on its out lap, but the safety car gave Gamou a second chance, and not long after the final restart he dived up the inside of his rvial at Attwood Curve, pushing Kobayashi off into the gravel in the process.

Gamou’s five-second penalty was not enough to stop LEON from taking the win as he took the checkered flag by a comfortable 14-second margin.

Anest Iwata Racing scored its first GT300 podium in second with the Lexus RC F GT3 driven by Igor Fraga and Hironobu Yasuda, which had started down in 21st, thanks to a strong first stint on wets followed by a well-timed switch to slicks on lap 50.

Completing the top-three on a similar strategy was the Kondo Racing Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 of Kohei Hirate and Joao Paulo de Oliveira, who was catching his former GT500 teammate Yasuda in the closing stages but fell short by just under six seconds.

The pole-sitting Goodsmile Racing Mercedes-AMG was handed an early drive-through penalty when Tatsuya Kataoka tapped Tomonobu Fujii’s D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo into a spin at Piper Corner, just after Fujii had passed for the lead.

Kataoka had been the first to come in for slicks on lap 46, helping he and teammate Nobuteru Taniguchi recover to fourth, while Pacific Racing made it three Mercedes-AMGs in the top five, scoring its first ever points since switching to the brand in 2023.

The all-new Seven x Seven Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R was a lead contender in the first half of the race but lost out to those cars that stopped for slick tires earlier, ending up eighth, while the CarGuy MKS Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 was out of the points on its debut in 17th after Zak O’Sullivan was penalized for contact.

Velorex’s Ferrari meanwhile was disqualified for a turbo boost infraction, having already picked up a drive-through penalty early in the race when Yoshiaki Katayama tipped Nomura’s UpGarage Mercedes-AMG into a spin.

RESULTS: GT500/GT300