Nakajima Delivers Honda Third Straight Pole at Sugo

Honda scored a third straight SUPER GT pole position as Riki Okusa broke the lap record to put the Nakajima Racing squad on top in qualifying at Sportsland Sugo.

The Dunlop-shod No. 64 Honda HRC Prelude-GT of Okusa and Igor Fraga entered Saturday’s Q2 pole shootout as the hot favorite for pole after Okusa went fastest in practice and Fraga led the way in Q1 with a best lap of 1:09.253.

Okusa duly delivered as he recorded a 1:09.050 to go just over three tenths clear of the field, also beating Ren Sato’s 2025 lap record of 1:09.122 in the process.

That marked the first pole position for Nakajima since Okusa and now-team director Takuya Izawa set the combined best time at Motegi in 2024.

Until the closing stages it looked as it the top two positions would be locked out by the only two GT500 cars not using Bridgestone tires, as Sena Sakaguchi provisionally put the Yokohama-shod Racing Project Bandoh Toyota GR Supra on the front row.

That was until Suzuka pole-winner Yuto Nomura put in a last-minute flyer of 1:09.368 in the No. 17 Real Racing Honda, giving the marque another front-row lockout and demoting the Bandoh entry, the best of the Toyotas, to third.

Tadasuke Makino put the Team Kunimitsu Honda fourth, followed by Toshiki Oyu in the Cerumo Toyota.

Sato was sixth in the Suzuka-winning No. 16 ARTA Honda, one place ahead of stablemate Kakunoshin Ohta in the No. 8 car and Yuhi Sekiguchi’s SARD Toyota.

Only one Nissan Z NISMO made it through to Q2: the Team Impul entry that Kazuki Hiramine qualified ninth ahead of Kazuya Oshima’s Rookie Racing Toyota.

After suffering a crash in practice at Turn 4 on a damp track, Teppei Natori qualified the repaired Kondo Racing Nissan 11th, but the car was later moved to the rear of the GT500 field due to excess skid block wear.

That promoted the points-leading No. 36 TOM’S Toyota that is carrying a nominal 100 kg handicap, originally 12th in Sho Tsuboi’s hands, to 11th.

Also knocked out in Q1 were the works Nissan of Mitsunori Takaboshi, who shares the No. 23 car with last-minute replacement Daiki Sasaki this weekend after Katsumasa Chiyo was injured, and the second TOM’S machine of Ukyo Sasahara.

LM Corsa Lexus Denies Subaru For First GT300 Pole

In GT300, Hiroki Yoshimoto took his and the team’s first pole aboard the No. 60 LM Corsa Lexus LC500 he shares with Shunsuke Kohno, eclipsing the works Subaru BRZ of Hideki Yamauchi and Takuto Iguchi by just under a tenth.

Yamauchi looked like he had done enough for pole when he dislodged CarGuy MKS Racing’s Zak O’Sullivan from the top of the times with a lap of 1:17.063, but Yoshimoto eclipsed the Subaru driver by 0.099 seconds when he set a 1:16.964.

Not only did that effort seal LM Corsa’s first-ever pole as a team, it is also the first for the apr-built LC500 since the Autopolis round in 2024.

O’Sullivan, who is set to leave SUPER GT at the end of the year to race in Formula E, secured third on the grid in the No. 7 Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo he shares with Toyota junior Kiyoshi Umegaki, while Seita Nonaka was fourth in the Saitama Green Brave Toyota GR Supra GT that has been freshly rebuilt since Hiroki Yoshida’s Suzuka crash.

Completing the top five was Tomonobu Fujii’s D’station Aston Martin Racing GT3 Evo.

Ryuichiro Tomita was fastest in his Q1 group in Gainer’s self-constructed Nissan Z, but Tomita’s co-driver Kazuki Oki could only manage seventh in Q2, behind the Goodsmile Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Tatsuya Kataoka.

The championship-leading Kondo Racing Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 barely missed the Q2 cut with Joao Paulo de Oliveira, and will start 19th.

Sunday’s Sugo 300km begins at 13:30 local time (12:30 a.m. EST).

RESULTS: GT500/GT300