Toyota Sweeps Top Three in Fuji GT500 Test

Toyota teams locked out the top three spots across two days of GT500 manufacturer testing at Fuji Speedway, as 11 cars took to the track in the final group running before SUPER GT’s first official pre-season test early next month.

Sho Tsuboi set the fastest time of the test on Friday morning, a 1:25.814, aboard the title-winning No. 36 TOM’S Toyota GR Supra to top the test by a margin of almost seven tenths of a second from Rookie Racing driver Nirei Fukuzumi.

The opening day of action had seen Fukuzumi set the pace on a 1:26.518 in the afternoon session at the wheel of the No. 14 GR Supra, but somewhat cooler conditions at Fuji on Friday resulted in the majority of cars improving their best lap times.

That time however was still good enough for second overall, marginally ahead of Toshiki Oyu in the Cerumo Toyota, who was second-fastest on Friday with a 1:26.596.

Best of the non-Toyotas was the Team Kunimitsu Honda HRC Prelude-GT with a time of 1:26.637 set by Naoki Yamamoto on the final day.

That was fractionally faster than the best Nissan time of the test, a 1:26.650 set by Kazuki Hiramine aboard Team Impul’s Nissan Z NISMO, which returned to action for the first time since January’s opening test of the winter at Sepang.

However, according to new testing rules this year that applying to the Bridgestone-shod race cars that took part at Sepang, the No. 12 Nissan was limited to running for only eight hours of the 12 that were on offer across the two days at Fuji.

ARTA’s Honda was sixth in the hands of Tomoki Nojiri, while Atsushi Miyake’s Thursday effort in the Kondo Racing Nissan was enough for seventh, ahead of the works No. 23 NISMO car in which Mitsunori Takaboshi set the fastest time.

Completing the 11-car order were the Dunlop-shod Nakajima Racing Honda, also making its first outing since the Sepang test, the Real Racing Honda and the SARD Toyota that was fastest in the previous GT500 test at Okayama.

What became a one-day GT Entrants Association (GTE) test for GT300 teams on Wednesday, after snow curtailed the first planned day of running, was topped by the new Bridgestone-shod No. 32 Rookie Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

The car shared by Hiroaki Ishiura and Tokiya Suzuki topped both sessions with a best time of 1:36.109, just ahead of the PONOS Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo of Kei Cozzolino and Takuro Shinohara that was running on Yokohama tires for the first time.

Official SUPER GT testing begins at Okayama International Circuit on March 6-7, but only the second day of track action will be held as a public event.