Suzuka Saturday Notebook

***While pole position for the Suzuka 1000km went to the No. 32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Charles Weerts, Kelvin van der Linde and Raffaele Marciello, the fastest individual time was set by Nicky Catsburg aboard the No. 2 JMR Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R in Q2, the Dutchman becoming the only driver to break the two-minute mark with a 1:59.936 in Q2.

***However, the No. 2 Corvette could only manage ninth in the provisional order as Alexander Sims lost his best lap for a track limits infringement in Q1.

***Catsburg said: “The car was mega to be honest. We showed some great pace but unfortunately the session was super-messy… a couple of red flags and a couple of track limits so we ended up P9. I think we did a great job after pre-qualifying to get the car in a window for qualifying. I think we’ll have an awesome car for the race.”

***The No. 61 EBM Porsche is set to take the start from the rear of the field after losing its lap times in Q1. That was after an off for Adrian D’Silva, after which the team pushed the car back into the garage, which is a breach of the regulations.

***Both cars that took fresh engines on Friday, the No. 99 JMR Corvette and the No. 98 K-tunes Racing Ferrari 296 GT3, didn’t experience any further problems on Saturday, provisionally qualifying 27th and 26th respectively.

***The No. 30 Team Handwork Challenge Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 also was back up to speed after a change of electrical harness, provisionally qualifying 12th, but lost its best time in Q3 for speeding under red flags with Daiki Sasaki at the wheel. It then suffered a five-place grid drop as Iori Kimura was deemed to have ignored yellow flags in Q1, dropping the car to 21st.

***Numerous other cars were also stripped of their best times for speeding under red flags, but one of the worst-impacted was the No. 77 Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, which dropped from a provisional 10th all the way down to 28th after Kaku Ohta had his best Q3 lap taken away for taking too long — 44 seconds — to drop to the speed limit of 80 km/h.

***Craft-Bamboo’s No. 28 Mercedes-AMG that suffered a heavy crash in the hands of Kevin Tse is understood not to require a change of chassis ahead of the race.

***As well as qualifying for the Suzuka 1000km, the first of two SRO Japan Cup races took place on Saturday. Taking victory was the No. 18 Team UpGarage Ferrari 296 GT3 of Takashi Kobayashi and ‘Akita’ after a well-timed switch to slick tires on a drying track, ahead of the No. 45 PONOS Racing Ferrari that made a similar strategic gambit.

***Kamui Kobayashi, who celebrated his 39th birthday at Suzuka on Saturday, regretted a troubled build-up to this weekend’s race in the No. 00 Goodsmile Racing Mercedes-AMG that qualified 24th after co-driver Tatsuya Kataoka had his best times scrubbed for a red flag offence. “It’s difficult, we are struggling,” Kobayashi told Sportscar365. “We had a problem with the diff and the suspension. If the car is right, I think we can fight, but so far there has been no chance.”

***Runup Sports is the only team in the field which is using the same car, a Nissan, in both the 1000km and the Japan Cup. This is despite the fact the Tomei Sports-run team also campaigns a Nissan in SUPER GT, and would be eligible to run that car under the agreement signed between the GTA and the SRO last year.

***Explaining the decision to come to Suzuka with only one car, owner/driver Atsushi Tanaka told Sportscar365: “We have the SUPER GT car, but the cost of running more than one car is too much. We had some trouble with the car, so we couldn’t finish earlier [in Japan Cup], but the main focus is the 1000km.”

***Tanaka also shed light on Runup’s last-minute change from the Pro-Am class to Am. He said: “When we saw the entry list, we saw only one car was entered in Am, and we thought it was a shame that there was a team [AMAC Motorsport] coming from far away without anyone to race against!”

***One of Tanaka’s co-drivers in the No. 360 Nissan, Masaaki Nishikawa, is not permitted to drive at night during the race after failing to complete his regulation two laps in night practice on Friday. The sun sets at 5:52 p.m. local time.

***75 Express will have a busy two-week stretch, with the Kenny Habul-owned team heading directly to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for next weekend’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Battle on the Bricks, fielding a GTD Pro class Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo for Habul, Mikael Grenier and Repco Supercars points leader Broc Feeney, who is set for his IMSA debut.

***Habul, who is undefeated in Suzuka endurance race appearances having taken class honors in both the 2018 and 2019 editions of the 10 Hours, said: “75 Express is Munich-based, all full-time employees. It’s a good team and we have good resources. I’m looking forward to it.”

***The team’s Indianapolis 8 Hour powered by AWS entry, which will run in Pro-Am, meanwhile, will feature Habul, Silver-rated Yannick Mettler, who is part of the lineup this weekend, and Mercedes-AMG driver Adam Christodoulou.

***Habul revealed that this weekend’s Mercedes-AMG chassis will head to The Brickyard for the IGTC season finale, while they will use an older chassis for next weekend’s six-hour Michelin Endurance Cup round. His first Bathurst 12 Hour-winning chassis, from 2022, has been retired, while the team’s 2023 Bathurst winner, which was craned out of retirement to finish second in 2024 and third this year, will be going into permanent retirement at Habul’s museum in Connecticut later this year.

***He confirmed that Mercedes-AMG factory aces Jules Gounon and Luca Stolz will continue in the team’s Bathurst lineup in 2026, in what will mark the fifth consecutive year with the same driving squad in the Australian enduro.

***The entry deadline for next month’s Indianapolis 8 Hour presented by AWS, which will serve as IGTC season finale, is on Monday. Sportscar365 understands that the Oct. 16-18 event has already surpassed last year’s 25-car grid, exclusively made up of GT3 machinery.

***Giancarlo Fisichella is making his first appearance at Suzuka this weekend since his final visit to the track as a Formula 1 driver in 2009. “It’s nice to be back at one of the best circuits in the world,” Fisichella told Sportscar365. “I was on the podium a few times in F1 and I also raced here in ITC [in 1996]. And the Japanese fans are probably the best fans in the world. I have felt really comfortable with the LM Corsa team, so we are confident.”

***Another Italian driver with a Suzuka F1 connection is Harmony Racing’s Lorenzo Patrese, the son of Riccardo, who scored his sixth and final F1 victory at the circuit in 1992 driving a Williams FW14B.

***Patrese, who is making his first Suzuka visit, told Sportscar365: “I did quite a bit of practice on the simulator at home, and my father knows his way around here, so we worked a bit together. The track hasn’t changed much since he drove it!”

***Chevrolet Japan has three road-going Corvettes on display in the glass-walled second floor walkway between the pit building and ‘Centerhouse’, featuring the Z06 Coupe, Corvette Convertible and E-Ray Coupe 3LZ. The Corvette Z06 GT3.R is making its Suzuka race debut this weekend with the two-car JMR squad.

***Ex-Formula 1 driver Yuji Ide is present at Suzuka. The four-time Grand Prix starter, who was part of the Super Aguri lineup for the opening part of the 2006 season, is a regular presence in the SRO Japan Cup paddock owing to his role in the company that supplies on-board cameras for the series.

***The Suzuka 1000km gets underway on Sunday at 12:50 p.m. local time (Saturday, 11:50 p.m. EST) on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel. The GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS commentary team of David Addison and Joe Osborne will lead coverage in the booth and be joined by SRO America’s Amanda Busick, as well as SRO Asia’s Amie Izawa on pit lane.

John Dagys contributed to this report