The au TOM'S GR Supra scores its second win of the season!
In the GT300 class, VENTENY Lamborghini GT3 takes a big come-from behind win
The MOTEGI GT 300km RACE, Round 8 of the 2024 AUTOBACS SUPER GT Series, took place on November 3rd (Sun.) at Mobility Resort Motegi (4,801m x 63 laps) in Tochigi Prefecture. In the GT500 class, the No. 36 au TOM'S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi/Kenta Yamashita) took its second win of the season to bring it a step away from winning the series title. In the GT300 class, the No. 88
VENTENY Lamborghini GT3 (Takashi Kogure/Yuya Motojima) put on a magnificent charge to come from a 17th-place grid start to take its second win in a row. These two cars were also the winners of last year's race at Motegi.
The next round that will decide the season champions will be the Round 5 race at SUZUKA that was postponed from September and has been rescheduled to be held on December 7th and 8th.
Unlike yesterday's qualifying day that was plagued with rain throughout the day, this Round 8 MOTEGI GT 300km RACE was held under clear autumn skies. In the GT500 race, the pole-sitting No. 64 Modulo CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Takuya Izawa/Riki Okusa) was caught by the No. 8 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #8 (Tomoki Nojiri/Nobuharu Matsusita) on the 8th lap and lost its lead. After this, a battle for the lead developed between car No. 8 and the series point leader in search of a second straight title win, the No. 36 au TOM'S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi/Kenta Yamashita).
With the faster speed of car No. 36, its driver Tsuboi succeeded in passing No. 8 on the 11th lap to take the lead, after which he ran on to extend his lead to more than 19 sec. by the time he returned for the team's pit stop on the 24th lap. Taking over the wheel of car No. 36 for the second half of the race, the second driver Yamashita maintained a steady pace that kept him well ahead of the pack until he finally completed the 63-lap race with a lead of more than 20.5 sec. over 2nd place.
Behind this, after being passed at one point by the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Hiroaki Ishiura/Toshiki Oyu) and dropping to 3rd position, car No. 8 came back into 2nd place when car No. 38's pace began to slow in the final stages of the race and finished the race there in 2nd place. In the final stages of the race, there was a battle for 3rd place between car No. 38 and the No. 16
ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #16 (Hiroki Otsu/Ren Sato) that saw the two cars change position several times until No. 38 finally prevailed and took 3rd place for a podium finish.
With these results, the No. 36 driver pair of Tsuboi and Yamashita expanded their existing lead in the Drivers title race to 73 points. Meanwhile, by finishing 6th in this race, the No. 100 STANLEY CIVIC TYPE R-GT driver pair of Naoki Yamamoto and Tadasuke Makino stood in 2nd place in the Drivers standing with 56 points. Furthermore, the car No. 38 driver pair of Ishiura and Oyu and
the No. 37 Deloitte TOM'S GR Supra pair of Ukyo Sasahara and Giuliano Alesi will be among the four teams competing for the Drivers championship title in the final Round 5 at SUZUKA (postponed due to a typhoon until December 7th and 8th).
In the GT300 class, the pole-starting No. 31 apr LC500h GT (Kazuto Kotaka/ Jin Nakamura) went on to lead the race over the first half, but the decision to adopt a no-tire-change strategy seemed to backfire and cause their pace to drop in the second half of the race.
In contrast, Yuya Motojima in the No. 88 VENTENY Lamborghini GT3, which had struggled in the wet conditions of the previous day's qualifying and had to start this day's race from 17th position on
the grid, charged ahead at a fast pace to pass one car after another until he was able to get his teammate Takashi Kogure back into the race in an amazing 3rd place after the driver change.
From there, car No. 88 went on to pass the No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG (Naoya Gamou/Takuro Shinohara) and car No. 31 to take the lead and continued to pull away in the pack to take its third win of the season, following the win in the previous round at AUTOPOLIS.
Finishing the race in 2nd place was car No. 65, which meant that the Gamou/Shinohara driver pair maintained their lead in the Drivers ranking, while this race's winning No. 88 pair of Kogure/Motojima moved up to 2nd place in the Drivers ranking. Joining the fight for the title in the final round of the season will be the No. 2 muta Racing GR86 GT (Yuui Tsutsumi/Hibiki Taira) that finished out of the points in this race.
*Spectators: Race Day Nov. 3: 30,000 / Qualifying Day Nov. 2: 12,300 (rain).
Winner Comments
No. 36 au TOM'S GR Supra [GT500]
Sho Tsuboi: "(After winning the race from a 3rd-position start?) I guess we did alright (wry laugh). Of course I wanted to move into the lead from the start, but I didn't think that things would work out this well. But the car was also good, and although we lost some speed on the straights due to the Success Weights and limited engine power, we were able to make good use of the FCY (Full
Course Yellow) timing and pass the others. Since our strategy was to give Yamashita-san a long stint in the second half, I wanted to get as large a margin of lead as I could for him. Since we were able to get the win as a team without any mistakes, I think we did a good job."
Kenta Yamashita: "I was a perfect weekend. Since we were carrying the biggest load of Success Weight, we also had limited engine power, so I really didn't think we were going to win. Because Tsuboi-san got the lead in the first half and built up a margin of 10 se. of lead, that took some of the pressure off of me as I ran (in the second half). The machine was fast and the pit work was
fast too, and for this I thank everyone."
No. 88 JLOC Lamborghini GT3 [GT300]
Takashi Kogure: "Motojima-san was really fast in the first half, and he moved up through the field (from a 17th position start) so well that I thought we could make it into the lead group. When I got out of the pit and into the race in 3rd place, I ran thinking that this was a chance (to get the win). I had some worries about the brakes along the way, but I reminded myself as I drove that it had
been the same last year (when we got our first win). And this time it was our first consecutive win, so I am very happy."
Yuya Motojima: "I myself am very surprised that a thing like this could happen (winning from a 17th position start) (laughs). Running in the first half, I felt that the pace was good, and since (our rival for the title) No. 65 was within reach, I talked about the tire change with the team in the radio and we proposed that we could make it by changing just two tires. And the team accepted that
suggestion and things went well. It was a change of just the two rear tires, but until the end Kogure-san was faster than anyone. This is a race that we won thanks to the people at Yokohama Tires, the team that worked on the machine set-up and Kogure-san, so I am truly happy with this."
