2023 AUTOBACS SUPER GT Round6

SUGO GT 300km RACE

Dates: September 16-17, 2023
Location: Sportsland SUGO (Miyagi Prefecture)
Attendance: Prelims: 9,400 Finals: 18,500
Qualifying: 10th
Finals: 5th
Points Earned: 6pts
Series Rank: 14th (15 points in total)

GOODSMILE Racing and & TeamUKYO achieved podium finishes (3rd/2nd) at Sportsland SUGO for two consecutive years in 2018 and 2019. Following the cancellation of the event in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, in 2021, the team competed strongly for a podium finish until midway through the race, but ultimately finished 23rd due to a flat tire. In 2022, Nobuteru Taniguchi was hospitalized due to a sudden illness the day before the race, so Kataoka did his best competing alone, eventually finishing in 26th place. This marked a second disappointing result in the last two years.

However, the team’s Mercedes-AMG GT3 excels at circuits like SUGO, which has many mid-speed and high-speed corners. This means that SUGO is not a problematic course for the team. Moreover, even though the team unfortunately failed to achieve a podium finish until the 6th race of the season, the team’s results so far mean that their Success Weight (SW) is a mere 27kg. Taking into consideration that some machines carry 100kg of weight, this represents a great chance for the team to finish in the top positions.

The total distance of this race is 300km, with one mandatory pit stop. The BoP (Balance of Performance) for the Mercedes-AMG GT3 is 1330kg, which is the car’s minimum weight of 1285kg plus the BoP weight of 40kg. As is usual, the engine power is limited by the imposed 34.5mm intake restrictor.
 
September, 16th(Sat) [Official Practice, Official Qualifying]
Weather: cloudy
Course: Q1:Wet / Q2:Dry
Air/Track Surface Temperature:
Q1 Start: 26℃/29℃
Q2 Start: 28℃/30℃

On the morning of the qualifying day, the official practice session started at 9:15 a.m. A WET declaration was issued as there were some wet spots left on the course due to rain from the night before.

The temperature was 23°C, and the humidity was 92%. A haze covered the entire Sportsland SUGO circuit. Although the weather was not bad, the course surface did not dry out due to the high humidity. Several teams in both the GT300 and GT500 classes were waiting in the pit to see what would happen. The course surface temperature was 25°C.

Car #4, Good Smile Hatsune Miku AMG, which was equipped with wet tires, entered the course under these conditions. On the 2nd lap, Kataoka, who was driving, recorded a lap of 1:27:142 to take third place, and he proceeded to record 15 consecutive laps in the 1:32 to 1:33 range before making a pit stop.

The course continued to dry out, and before 10:00 a.m., the ideal driving line was almost dry, so Kataoka swapped to slick tires at this point. On his first lap back on the course, Kataoka recorded a time of roughly 1:20. He then recorded a time of 1:19:743 on the 20th lap, before setting a new personal best of 1:19:458 on the 21st lap. He was in 11th place at this point.

Car #4 fine-tuned its balance repeatedly during a short run of 1-2 laps, but before the end of the mixed racing period, car #48 (Shokumou K’s Frontier GT-R) crashed at the exit of the S-corner before the high point of the course. A red flag was displayed to retrieve the car and repair the barriers.

The session resumed at 10:40 a.m. with the start of the GT300 only session, and Taniguchi switched to become the driver. It was his first time at SUGO since last season’s qualifiers, but he said that he didn’t feel that his memory of the course was blank, or that it had been a long time since he raced at SUGO, saying that he was simply driving on SUGO, a course he was familiar with. After the tires had warmed up, he improved his time to 1:19:568. At this point, the final attacking simulation for the afternoon qualifying session was about to …, when car #31 (apr LC500h GT) lost control and collided with the barriers at the exit to a SP corner, and the session was suspended. Car #4 finished the official practice in 16th place thanks to Kataoka’s time in the first half of the session.

The afternoon qualifying session began at 2:40 p.m. As per usual, the Q1 of GT300 qualifying was divided into two groups according to ranking, and GOODSMILE RACING & TeamUKYO was assigned to group B. Kataoka, who drove during the mixed racing period during the official practice session and achieved third place in the FCY test after the end of the exclusive session, was the Q1 attacker. However, rain started to fall just before the Q1A group was scheduled to begin.

Although the rain stopped almost immediately, a WET declaration was issued. Some teams in group A were unable to cope with the sudden change in conditions, but car #4 finished equipped its wet tires before qualifying for group B began at 2:58 p.m., and calmly made its way to the course.

The course surface temperature was 29°C. After assessing the course conditions on an out lap, Kataoka immediately decided to switch to slick tires, saying, “I was able to make a decision right away, and I think it was the right decision.” Keeping the time lost from the switch in tires to a minimum, car #4 set a time of 1:20:119 on lap 4, and cut the time to 1:19:340 in the following final attack. The team advanced to Q2 in 5th place.

Taniguchi, who was responsible for driving in Q2 at 3:33 p.m., also headed out to the course as soon as the session started, and was the 10th car overall to enter the course. He recorded a time of 1:18:803 on lap 4, setting new personal bests for all sectors, and from there, he improved to 1:18:739 and moved into the top 10. He set even better personal best times in Sectors 1 and 3 on the checkered lap, improving his time to 1:18:471 and moving up to 6th place.

The top three places were occupied by teams that preferred Dunlop tires: car #96 (K-tunes RC F GT3), car #20 (Shade Racing GR86 GT), and car #61 (SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT). Car #52 (Saitama Toyopet GB GR Supra GT), which had Bridgestone tires equipped, was in 4th place. The team finished behind car #56 (Realize Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R), with a SW of 100kg, just 0.001 seconds ahead of car #18 (UPGARAGE NSX GT3), also with a SW of 100kg.

However, immediately after entering the course, the team was told that the car had crossed the white line when entering the course, and they were penalized by having their best lap time erased. As a result, the team started the race the following day in 10th place based on their second-best lap time.
 
September, 17th (Sun) [Final]
Weather: Cloudy
Course: Dry
Air/Track Surface Temperature:
Prior to Start (13:23 PM): 28℃, 33℃
Mid-Race (15:31 PM): 27℃/31℃
End of Race (16:24 PM) 25℃/30℃

It rained again the night before the day of the race, and the weather was overcast, with a light drizzle, even after the teams arrived at the circuit in the morning. The warm-up session started at noon, and the team’s focus was on assessing the track conditions as well as the car’s balance. Kataoka completed 12 laps, finishing 18th overall, with a time of 1:21:742.

Even when the race was starting, occasional raindrops fell from the grey sky …. FCY (full course yellow) and SC (safety car) were expected to occur in the race starting at 1:30 p.m. due to the sudden change in weather and the resulting accidents. In order to avoid disqualification, a “minimum” strategy was employed generally during the race, in which drivers were required to complete a minimum of one-third of the total race distance before switching with their partner.

The temperature was 28°C and the track surface temperature was 33°C before the parade and formation lap. This was the first time during the weekend that the temperature exceeded 30°C, but the humidity was still 83%, so rain could fall at any time.

When the race started, Kataoka, who was responsible for the first stint, overtook car 27 (Yogibo NSX GT3) on the first corner of the second lap, quickly making 9th place his own.

From this point on, car #4 was able to record laps of 1:21 to 1:22 as expected, but its next target, car #10 (PONOS GAINER GT-R), blocked the way forward, and it had to follow car #10 patiently while maintaining a gap of roughly 1 second. Despite this, Kataoka waited for the moment when the other car’s tires would decline in performance, and continued to apply pressure while concentrating on managing his own tires. On lap 21, just before the pit window for the GT300 class opened, he overtook the car in front, moving into 8th place. Car #87 (Bamboo Airways Lamborghini GT3) took advantage of this move and moved behind car #4.

Two laps later, the leading car, car #52, pitted for routine work, and car #4 moved up to 7th. Another two laps later, car #96 also pitted, putting car #4 in 6th. The team recalled Kataoka to the pit after completing lap 27, and decided to replace the two tires on the left side of the car, which was the outside of the course. The team swiftly completed their work and sent the car on its way, leaving everything up to Taniguchi’s management and driving.

The replacement of the two tires allowed car #4 to shorten its times, and it successfully overtook car #61. However, on the out lap, car #4 tried and failed to force its way past car #20 on the inside of the final corner due to cold tires. The car could not move to the inside of the course even though Taniguchi tried to do so, went into a dusty zone and was unable to turn, losing a lot of ground and dropping down the rankings.

On the 34th lap, when car #4 returned in 15th place and needed to apply pressure on the cars in front, a GT500 class car collided with another car on the home straight and crashed into the guardrail on the side of the grandstands. The impact was so severe that the car was shredded to pieces. The SC immediately entered the track, and the race was red-flagged.

The formation of cars came to a halt at the first corner as the FRO (First Rescue Operation) continued its rescue operations on the track, and the race was suspended for about an hour. At 3:20 p.m., the cars began moving again, with the SC leading the way, and roughly 5 laps later, on lap 42, the SC left the track, and the race resumed in earnest. Due to the slow pace of the lapped cars, car #10, which was in front of car #4, slowed down at the entrance to the S-corner, and Taniguchi was unable to floor the accelerator. The car was also forced to go onto the dirt on the outside of the course on its two left tires in order to avoid the lapped cars. This opened up an opportunity for car #61, which showed unparalleled speed here at SUGO, to overtake, even though it had had its BoP increased from this race onwards and was carrying a 69kg success weight.

However, the second stint was still in its early stages. “I didn’t dwell on it. There was still a long way to go in the race, and I knew from my experience at Suzuka last time out that if I managed my tires, I could drive fast right up to the end,” said Taniguchi. He concentrated on tire management while taking care of the left and right sided tires, which had different mileages. He recovered to 12th after car #56 received a penalty, and continued to record lap times in the 1:22 to 1:33 range with great accuracy amidst the traffic.

On the 53rd lap, car #9 (PACIFIC VSPO NAC AMG) pitted, and on the 54th lap, car 87, which had been leading during the routine part of the race for a long time, also pitted, meaning that car #4 was now once again in the top 10. In front of car #4 was a group of cars engaged in a close battle for the top 5, one following the other like a string of beads.

On lap 61, when car #4 was catching up to the group of cars in front, it picked up some tire debris at the final corner when giving way to a group of GT500 cars and almost slipped off the course again, once again falling further behind. However, the driver did not give up and set about closing the gap again, and on lap 63, he was able to overtake car #96 to move into 9th. It then became a four-car battle with car #65 (LEON PYRAMID AMG), car #11 (GAINER TANAX GT-R), and car #10 (GT-R). On lap 67, car #4 passed the Bridgestone-equipped car #65 and advanced to 8th, but its path was blocked by two GT-Rs, and it became embroiled in a back-and-forth battle with the cars trading places.

On lap 70, car #4 repositioned itself for a renewed charge, and decisively won the duel of Mercedes-AMG GT3s against car #65, moving up to 8th, before passing car #11, which was showing a significant drop in performance. The car also passed car #10 on the following lap, advancing to 6th.

Car #4 continued to set the fastest pace in its class, recording a lap time of 1:21 on lap 72 in the final stages of the race. On lap 78, the final lap of the race, Taniguchi recorded a lap time of 1:22:073, racing past the checkered flag without slowing down his lap times until the very end. The drama continued after the finish, as car #18, which seemed to have pulled off a major upset victory, was disqualified after a car inspection due to a “minimum ground clearance violation,” and car #4 was officially moved up to 5th place.

Even though the team finished in 5th place at Suzuka last time around, marking its best finish of the season, it was still a disappointing result. This time, however, the team did everything it could and finished in 5th place for a second consecutive race, surpassing even their position on the qualifying grid, which turned out to be a mirage.

 

■Comments from the Team

Team Owner: Aki Takanori
Overall, I think we did well in terms of handling minor details such as setting up the car, strategy, and the use of tires. However, in terms of performance, there were other teams that were faster on this course, and there were also teams that took advantage of the FCY. I think that was somewhat “inevitable”, but I felt that we made progress this time as well. Although it did not lead to results, the fact that we were able to catch up in the latter half of the race is also evidence that we had prepared well in advance. At any rate, I am happy that we were able to make it back to our qualifying placing (a phantom 6th place, later moved up to 5th). I actually thought that getting on the podium would make everyone in the team “feel it again” just a little, but it looks like we were a little too greedy (laughs). The next race at Autopolis is even longer at 450km, and I think the longer the race is, the better we will be able to fight. Please look forward to it.

Team Manager, Ukyo Katayama
There was a lot of messing around this time, but if we had been able to get all the gears to mesh well, we would have been able to … Even in qualifying, if we had been in group A, which was affected by the rain … we would not have known about that grid position, so we may have been lucky there, but we might also have been able to start the race with new tires … and so on. The characteristics of the course also influenced things, but in the middle of the race, we were competing against cars that were tough opponents due to their characteristics, and we were also competing as a tag team, so it was “hand-to-hand combat” in that respect as well. The race was on a course on which it is difficult to overtake, and considering the FCY and SC, it is difficult to choose any strategy other than undercutting. We could only undercut, especially when we were behind. But when we were paying attention to the GT500 group, we were caught by the GT300 group that had split up. That was another thing that we will need to reflect on.