ARTA Left to Rue Slow Refuel Time in Suzuka Defeat

The ARTA Honda team has pinned the blame on its defeat in last weekend’s Suzuka SUPER GT round squarely on its longer refuelling time in relation to its rivals.

Starting from pole position, the No. 16 Honda Civic Type R-GT shared by Hiroki Otsu and Ren Sato only finished fourth despite carrying no success weight on a day that Nissan put an end to Toyota’s nine-race winning streak in the GT500 class.

Otsu led the early stages from pole, fending off the No. 23 Nissan Z NISMO of Mitsunori Takaboshi until both drivers made their mandatory pit stops on lap 18 of 52, at which point the works NISMO crew was able to get the jump on ARTA.

It took 32.7 seconds for ARTA to turn around the No. 16 car as Sato took over from Otsu for the latter stint, 1.8 seconds slower than NISMO’s changeover from Takaboshi to Katsumasa Chiyo, who went on to score victory.

ARTA lost further positions when the No. 3 Nissan stopped on lap 19 and the Rookie Racing Toyota GR Supra came in on lap 20, both getting ahead of the No. 16 Honda, with Sato spending the remaining distance stuck behind Atsushi Miyake’s No. 3 car.

Team owner Aguri Suzuki said: “Neither the team nor the drivers made any mistakes and we were passed by three cars. The refuelling time was the reason, and it’s not that we made any mistakes, but rather the fuel economy was the issue.

“It’s painful to lose like this when we are all so evenly-matched on speed.”

Otsu described the drop from first to fourth during the pit stop phase as “extremely frustrating”, particularly as he felt the pace to win the race was there.

“The first stint was tough, but somehow I was able to keep the lead until I handed over to Ren,” commented Otsu. “But because our refuelling took a long time, we allowed three cars to get in front of us during the pit stops.

“I think we had a car that matched the conditions, but it was difficult to make up for the lost ground. To start from pole and finish fourth is extremely frustrating.

“But we found a lot of positive things, so I want to increase our accuracy further and challenge for a good result in the next race at Sugo.”

Sato added: “The pace itself after I took over wasn’t bad, but we had adopted a set-up with more downforce, and as a result I wasn’t able to overtake.

“Towards the end, the track temperatures were dropping and I think we were faster than the No. 3 car that was right in front of me. I think we have the speed to fight in the next race, so I’ll do my best to make up for this frustration.”

Honda’s other four Civic Type R-GTs failed to feature in the victory fight at Suzuka, with the Dunlop-shod Nakajima Racing car finishing seventh and the Team Kunimitsu machine that had a stage-one fuel flow restrictor managing a single point for tenth.

Both cars lost ground to Toyotas during the pit stops, as the Nakajima car was jumped by the Cerumo GR Supra and the Kunimitsu car was passed by the No. 1 TOM’S machine.

ARTA’s No. 8 car of Tomoki Nojiri and Nobuharu Matsushita, which was carrying a 43 kg handicap, endured a particularly miserable weekend, qualifying 12th and finishing 11th.

Matsushita said: “Because we were in the middle in terms of success weight, I was thinking we should be aiming to finish mid-pack, but in the end we didn’t have the speed.

“We tried a lot of things, and this was the end result, so I think we need to change our way of doing things a little.”