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Qualifying report

Fuji Super GT: Tachikawa takes pole as Lexus dominates

Lexus dominated qualifying for the second Super GT round on its home turf in Fuji, with the #38 Zent Cerumo squad taking pole position for the season’s second longest race.

#38 Zent Cerumo LC500: Yuji Tachikawa and Hiroaki Ishiura

#38 Zent Cerumo LC500: Yuji Tachikawa and Hiroaki Ishiura

#38 Zent Cerumo Lexus LC500: Yuji Tachikawa, Hiroaki Ishiura
#25 Team Tsuchiya Toyota MC86
#4 Goodsmile Racing & Team Ukyo Mercedes SLS AMG GT3: Nobuteru Taniguchi, Tatsuya Kataoka
#23 Nismo Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 detail
#37 Team Tom's Lexus LC500: Nick Cassidy

Three-time Super GT champion Yuji Tachikawa set the pace in qualifying, topping the timesheets with a time of 1m27.825s.

His teammate Hiroaki Ishiura, a former Super Formula champion, was second-quickest in Q1.

Tsugio Matsuda and Ronnie Quintarelli broke Lexus’ hegemony by qualifying the #23 Nissan GT-R on the front row of the grid, despite the latter lapping over three tenths slower in Q2.

The #6 Wako and #36 au TOM’S cars were separated by just 0.005s, with Kazuya Oshima upsetting Daisuke Ito, who is subbing for Toyota WEC driver Kazuki Nakajima.

Defending champions Heikki Kovalainen and Kohei Hirate were fifth quickest in the #1 SARD Lexus, while the Okayama-winning #37 KeePer TOM’S duo of Ryo Hirakawa and Nick Cassidy took seventh.

With all six Lexus cars making it to the Q2, only one Honda qualified in the top-eight - the Okayama pole-sitting #8 ARTA car, although Takashi Kobayashi was over a second off the pace in the NSX-GT.

GT300: Mercedes leads Porsche

In the GT300 category, Team Ukyo took the spot in qualifying, securing a second consecutive pole pole position for Mercedes.

Nobuteru Taniguchi, who shares the #4 AMG GT3 with Tatsuya Kataoka, lapped the Fuji Speedway in 1m35.824s, beating Gulf Racing duo Jono Lester and Kyosuke Mineo by a tenth of a second.

D’Station made it two Porsches in the top three, with Sven Muller and Tomonobu Fujii ending 0.185s adrift of Taniguchi’s chart-topping laptime.

GT500 Qualifying Results:

Pos.DriverCarQ1Q2
1  Yuji Tachikawa
 Hiroaki Ishiura
Lexus
1'28.089
1'27.825

2  Tsugio Matsuda
 Ronnie Quintarelli
Nissan 1'28.651


1'28.168
3  Kazuya Oshima
 Andrea Caldarelli
Lexus
1'28.241
1'28.217

4  Daisuke Ito
 James Rossiter
Lexus
1'28.056
1'28.222

5  Heikki Kovalainen
 Kohei Hirate
Lexus 1'28.485


1'28.260
6  Yuhi Sekiguchi
 Kenta Yamashita
Lexus 1'28.474


1'28.537
7  Ryo Hirakawa
 Nick Cassidy
Lexus 1'28.582


1'28.688
8  Tomoki Nojiri
 Takashi Kobayashi
Honda 1'28.480


1'29.088
9  Naoki Yamamoto
 Takuya Izawa
Honda 1'28.674



10  Koudai Tsukakoshi
 Takashi Kogure
Honda 1'28.823



11  Satoshi Motoyama
 Katsumasa Chiyo
Nissan
1'28.836


12  Hironobu Yasuda
 Jann Mardenborough
Nissan
1'28.883


13  Hideki Mutoh
 Daisuke Nakajima
Honda 1'29.281



14  Daiki Sasaki
 Joao Paulo de Oliveira
Nissan
1'29.458


15  Bertrand Baguette
 Kosuke Matsuura
Honda 1'29.880



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