Autobacs SUPER GT – Round 6 – Fuji

20 Sep, 2011

At 2:00 in the afternoon the 55-lap race began under cloudy skies with the air temperature at 29°C. and the track surface temperature at 39°C.
The front of the starting grid was monopolized by SC430 machines, and the they began the race with mo major mishaps or upsets at the start.

The first machine through the opening lap was the No. 39 DENSO SARD SC430 (Hiroaki Ishiura), but right on its tail throughout the early stages of the race was the the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430 (Kohei Hirate) in hot pursuit. Following in 3rd position came the No. 6 ENEOS SUSTINA SC430 (Kazuya Oshima) and in 4th came the No. 35 D'STATION KeePer SC430 (Andre Couto). However, the two leaders gradually pulled away from the rest of the field and the race became a showdown between the two SC430s.

The SC430 teams remained dominant in the early stages of the race, until the No. 35 D'STATION KeePer SC430 (Couto) began to fall of the pace rapidly after the tenth lap. It was passed by one machine after another over the 13th and 14th laps, allowing the No. 8 ARTA HSV-010 (Hideki Mutoh) to move into 5th position, only to lose it again by running off the track at the Coca Cola Corner of lap 14. Moving up next to claim the 5th spot was the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R. After running off the track, the No. 8 ARTA HSV-010 went straight back to the pit, where it was lapped by the field.

No.12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R More trouble was in store for the SC430 teams, as the No. 6 ENEOS SUSTINA SC430 also fell off the pace while running in 3rd position and was passed by the No. 36 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 (Andre Lotterer) at the Dunlop turn of lap 17. In the same way, both Oshima and Couto dropped far back in the field.
Meanwhile, the two lead machines increased their gap over the rest of the field as they ran on in an intense dual with only a few tenths of a second separating them until the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430 made its routine pit stop first at the end of 24th lap. The driver change put Yuji Tachikawa at the wheel of No. 38. On the next lap (25) the No. 39 DENSO SARD SC430 also made its pit stop and changed drivers to Takuto Iguchi. Helped by some fast pit work, Iguchi was able to return to the race with a 2-second lead over Tachikawa.

After delaying his pit stop as much as possible, Bjorn Wirdheim finally brought the No. 24 ADVAN KONDO GT-R in for its routine stop on lap 31. This put the No. 39 DENSO SARD SC430 (Iguchi) back in the lead. Iguchi continued to race on toward his first win, maintaining a lead of 3 to 4 seconds over the pursuing Tachikawa (No. 38). Behind these two lead machines there was an intense battle between the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda) and the No. 17 KEIHIN HSV-010 (Koudai Tsukakoshi) for the 3rd-place spot vacated by the No. 36 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 (Kazuki Nakajima) when it lost speed. However, by this point the battle for the lead and the win had come down to just two machines, No. 39 DENSO SARD SC430 and the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430.

No.17 KEIHIN HSV-010 It appeared as if Iguchi in the No. 39 DENSO SARD SC430 would sail home to victory until a sudden tire burst on the No. 36 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 (Nakajima) coming out of the last turn on lap 50 cause it to crash. This made the main straight a yellow flap zone and prevented Iguchi from passing the GT300 machine he happened to come up behind. With this delay Iguchi lost his margin of lead all at once and put the 2nd-place No. 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430 (Tachikawa) right on his tail.
Now, the man long known as the "Fuji Meister", Tachikawa (No. 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430), had the opportunity to prove he was worthy of the name and to end his dry spell here at Fuji Speedway over the last few years. Tachikawa made his move at the Coca Cola Corner of lap 53, charging in from the outside to pass Iguchi and take the lead for the first time.

Iguchi continued to chase Tachikawa through the last lap until he had to slow for a backmarker at the Prius Corner and was ironically hit from behind by a GT300 machine, sending him to into a spin.

This dramatic come-from-behind victory by the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430 finally gave the SC430 camp its first victory of the season, here on the Toyota home track.

The time it took to recover from the last-lap spin dropped the No. 39 DENSO SARD SC430 to 8th place. Finishing 2nd and 3rd respectively were the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R and the No. 17 KEIHIN HSV-010, while the No. 1 Weider HSV-010 finished 4th and the No. 100 RAYBRIG HSV-010 came home in 5th place. The ranking leader, the No. 46 S Road MOLA GT-R, finished 7th but still managed to maintain its place at the top of the season ranking.

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