Testing report
Super GT Okayama Testing
Toyota goes 1-2 on final day of Okayama official SUPER GT test
Toyota locked out the top two positions on the second day of official SUPER GT testing at Okayama, as Sena Sakaguchi put Racing Project Bandoh at the head of the order.
Jamie Klein
Published: Mar 12, 2023, 7:01 AM
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Sakaguchi, who shares the Yokohama-shod #19 Toyota GR Supra with Yuji Kunimoto, recorded a best time of 1m18.074s around half an hour into the two-hour morning session to top the times by exactly a tenth of a second.
While that was a considerable improvement from the team's best time on the opening day of testing on Saturday, it was still 0.247s shy of the benchmark established by ARTA Honda driver Nirei Fukuzumi.
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Ritomo Miyata continued the promising form of the #36 TOM'S Toyota, which runs on Bridgestone tyres, albeit going marginally slower than team-mate Sho Tsuboi had managed on Saturday.
Third-fastest was Daiki Sasaki in the best of the Nissan Zs, the #24 Kondo Racing car, ahead of the two ARTA Honda NSX-GTs, the #16 car of Hiroki Otsu leading the #8 machine of Toshiki Oyu.
Two more Hondas were next up, the Team Kunimitsu (Tadasuke Makino) example leading Real Racing (Nobuharu Matsushita), followed by the Team Impul Nissan of Bertrand Baguette in eighth.
Besides the two Yokohama cars, the only other GT500 runner to improve on Sunday was the #37 TOM'S Toyota, which was ninth-fastest in the hands of sophomore Giuliano Alesi.
As has become traditional in recent years during official testing, the final session began with a dummy race start, with most teams settling into long runs shortly thereafter and not improving on their morning times.
Nissan topped a session for the first time this year courtesy of the #3 NDDP Racing car of Mitsunori Takaboshi with a 1m19.079s.
Makino was second-fastest aboard the Kunimitsu Honda, 0.264s further back, while Hiroaki Ishiura made it three different manufacturers in the top three aboard the Cerumo Toyota.
In the GT300 class, it was the K-tunes Racing Lexus RC F GT3 of Morio Nitta that led the way with a best effort of 1m25.677s in the morning - 0.277s down on the benchmark set by the JLOC Lamborghini team on Saturday.
#96 K-tunes RC F GT3
Photo by: Masahide Kamio
Second-fastest was the Shade Racing Toyota GR86 GT of Katsuyuki Hiranaka, whose time of 1m25.725s puts the team third across the two days of testing, while Takashi Kogure, who had set the best time on Saturday, was third aboard the #88 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo.
Subaru recovered from a troubled opening day of testing with its BRZ with the sixth-fastest time courtesy of Hideki Yamauchi.
Three-time champion Nitta made it a clean sweep of fastest times with a 1m26.585s in the afternoon session, which like the morning session passed by without any stoppages.
Official pre-season testing continues at Fuji Speedway on March 25-26, before SUPER GT returns to Okayama for the opening round on April 15-16.
Okayama SUPER GT testing times (GT500 class):
Pos. No. Team/Car Drivers Morning Afternoon 1 19 Racing Project Bandoh/Toyota
Yuji Kunimoto
Sena Sakaguchi
1'18.074 1'20.787 2 36 TOM'S/Toyota
Sho Tsuboi
Ritomo Miyata
1'18.174 1'20.657 3 24 Kondo Racing/Nissan
Daiki Sasaki
Kohei Hirate
1'18.191 1'20.050 4 16 ARTA/Honda
Nirei Fukuzumi
Hiroki Otsu
1'18.224 1'20.484 5 8 ARTA/Honda
Tomoki Nojiri
Toshiki Oyu
1'18.348 1'20.197 6 100 Kunimitsu/Honda
Naoki Yamamoto
Tadasuke Makino
1'18.426 1'19.343 7 17 Real Racing/Honda
Koudai Tsukakoshi
Nobuharu Matsushita
1'18.613 1'20.259 8 1 Impul/Nissan
Bertrand Baguette
Kazuki Hiramine
1'18.693 1'20.226 9 37 TOM'S/Toyota
Giuliano Alesi
Ukyo Sasahara
1'18.789 1'20.394 10 3 NDDP Racing/Nissan
Katsumasa Chiyo
Mitsunori Takaboshi
1'18.823 1'19.079 11 23 NISMO/Nissan
Ronnie Quintarelli
Tsugio Matsuda
1'18.851 1'20.149 12 39 SARD/Toyota
Yuhi Sekiguchi
Yuichi Nakayama
1'18.878 1'20.086 13 14 Rookie Racing/Toyota
Kazuya Oshima
1'18.922 1'21.175 14 38 Cerumo/Toyota
Yuji Tachikawa
Hiroaki Ishiura
1'19.327 1'19.725 15 64 Nakajima Racing/Honda
Takuya Izawa
1'19.647 1'20.263
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