2009 SUPER GT : First victory for the Hasemi Motorsports

No.3 HASEMI TOMICA EBBRO GT-R : Ronnie Quintarelli and Hironobu Yasuda

SEPANG Circuit, Malaysia : June 21, 2009 - The SUPER GT INTERNATIONAL SERIES IN MALAYSIA race, Round 4 of the 2009 AUTOBACS SUPER GT, was held at the Sepang International Circuit (lap = 5.542 km x 54 laps) in Malaysia on June 21 and the GT500 class winner was the HASEMI TOMICA EBBRO GT-R driven by Ronnie Quintarelli and Hironobu Yasuda for their first victory of the season.

The race started exactly at 14:00. In the early stages of the race there was a close race for the lead between the pole starting MOTUL AUTECH GT-R driven by Satoshi Motoyama and the ZENT CERUMO SC430 driven by Richard Lyons, but the ZENT CERUMO team's routine pit stop took longer than its rivals and by the time Tachikawa got on the track for his stint after the driver change, the SC430 had dropped to 4th position. Undaunted, Tachikawa began his chase and soon recovered to 3rd position. In the meantime, the MOTUL AUTECH GT-R running alone in the lead was having tire trouble and losing speed. This allowed the PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 to take the lead and Tachikawa moved into 2nd. Then Tachikawa pushed on to work his way past PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 driven by Jyuichi Wakisaka with four laps remaining in the race. Just after this there was a multi-car crash behind the leaders that brought out the safety car while the track was being cleared. Eventually the race ended with the leaders running in the same order behind the safety car, giving the ZENT CERUMO SC430 a well-earned come-from-behind victory.

This win was Tachikawa's 11th in his illustrious SUPER GT career, moving him one ahead of Satoshi Motoyama with a new all-time record of most wins. This win also stopped at five the GT-R winning streak that had continued since round six of last season at Suzuka. For the Lexus SC430 this was the first victory since the same team of Tachikawa and Lyons won round three of the 2008 season.

In the GT300 class, the HANKOOK PORSCHE driven by Mitsuhiro Kinoshita and Masami Kageyama started from the class pole position and ran the entire race without ever effectively giving up the lead. This was the first SUPER GT victory for both the HANKOOK PORSCHE team and HANKOOK Tires.
(Spectators: 35,000)

GT500 Winner - No.3 HASEMI TOMICA EBBRO GT-R : Ronnie Quintarelli and Hironobu Yasuda on the podium

Winner Comments

GT500 - No.3 HASEMI TOMICA EBBRO GT-R

Ronnie Quintarelli: “I am really happy. I thought we might have a chance of winning here at Sepang even before we came. The team has done a fantastic job with the machine preparation and Michelin prepared some great tires for us. Also, we two drivers did training to prepare for the heat. So, I feel this victory was truly a product of everyone's efforts. I can't help congratulating myself and the team (laughs). Car No. 1 had trouble before the start that took it out of the lead, so I was able to run at my own pace and concentrate on tire management too. With the exception of the times when I got stuck behind GT300 machines, I had no problems. There was also a time when the tires were losing grip, but after the 20th lap or so it got better and stayed good until the pit stop. The tires performed better than I expected. So I was able to turn the machine over to Yasuda with a good margin of lead, and the team's pit works was also fast too."

Hironobu Yasuda: “I am also very happy. I really caused the team a lot of trouble with my big crash at Suzuka that nearly totaled the machine. So, I was hoping that I could returned that debt with a victory. Now that has happened, and that makes me happiest of all. The NSX teams came into this race with a strategy of getting an advantage by only changing two tires, and there was one dangerous moment when I came out of the pit and doubled up with an NSX machine. But I was able to keep position, and I worked hard to pull away after that. Once I got away, Manager Hasemi told me [over the radio] that I didn't need to push too hard. He said I could relax and stay cool. After that I just ran with an eye on the margin between the machines behind me."

GT300 Winner - No.2 I.M JIHAN CO.LTD・APPLE・Shiden : Hiroki Katoh - Hiroki Yoshimoto on the podium

Winner Comments - GT300

GT300 - No.2 I.M JIHAN CO.LTD・APPLE・Shiden

Hiroki Katoh: “Yesterday's events were frustrating [being disqualified after winning the class pole] but I told myself that the race wasn't over because of it, and that it only meant that the chance of winning had been narrowed to some degree. That made my desire to win even stronger. The race also went well strategically, and the team staff did a great job for us. The car and the tires were both very good. I am really happy with this result."

Hiroki Yoshimoto: “Since I came to the team from Round 2, we have had to start at the very back of the grip or 3rd from the back, so I was worried that people would say I brought bad luck to the team. But like Katoh-san told me to do, I turned that frustration into competitive spirit on the track and was able to come to the race with a positive attitude. Katoh-san started and we had some good luck with the accidents up in front of him, but we also had the skills to get around them and keep working hard as a team to get past the frustration and not give up. And the result was that everyone put together a perfect race. On my stint the tires were also performing perfectly from beginning to end. But at the end, it was by no means just a matter of maintaining a margin. I don't think I could have pushed any harder if I was told to."

GT500 - Classification

Pos	No.	Machine	Drivers	Time	Lap
1	3	HASEMI TOMICA EBBRO GT-R	Ronnie Quintarelli Hironobu Yasuda	1:52:02.010	54
2	17	KEIHIN NSX	Toshihiro Kaneishi Koudai Tsukakoshi	0'11.494	54
3	8	ARTA NSX	Ralph Firman Takuya Izawa	0'16.206	54
4	100	RAYBRIG NSX	Yuji Ide Shinya Hosokawa	0'16.565	54
5	24	HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R	J.P. Lima de Oliveira Seiji Ara	0'34.789	54
6	36	PETRONAS TOM'S SC430	Jyuichi Wakisaka Andre Lotterer	0'35.115	54
7	12	IMPUL CALSONIC GT-R	Tsugio Matsuda Sebastien Philippe	0'40.163	54
8	1	MOTUL AUTECH GT-R	Satoshi Motoyama Benoit Treluyer	0'40.397	54
9	35	KRAFT SC430	Hiroaki Ishiura Kazuya Oshima	1'23.099	54
10	38	ZENT CERUMO SC430	Yuji Tachikawa Richard Lyons	2'01.676	54
11	32	EPSON NSX	Loic Duval Yuki Nakayama	2'23.697	54
12	18	ROCKSTAR DOME NSX	Ryo Michigami Takashi Kogure	1Lap	53
13	39	DUNLOP SARD SC430	Andre Couto Kohei Hirate	1Lap	53
14	6	ENEOS SC430	Daisuke Ito Bjorn Wirdheim	7Laps	47

GT300 - Classification

Pos	No.	Machine	Drivers	Time	Lap
1	2	I.M JIHAN CO.LTD•APPLE•Shiden	Hiroki Katoh Hiroki Yoshimoto	1:52'35.708	50
2	19	WedsSport IS350	Manabu Orido Tatsuya Kataoka	0'09.685	50
3	7	M7 MUTIARA MOTORSAMEMIYASGC 7	Nobuteru Taniguchi Ryo Orime	0'53.064	50
4	46	S Road MOLA Z	Kazuki Hoshino Masataka Yanagida	1'03.273	50
5	66	triple a MURCIE RG-1	Koji Yamanishi Atsushi Yogo	1'29.191	50
6	31	avex apr COROLLA Axio	Yuya Sakamoto Hideki Yamauchi	1Lap	49
7	52	KUMHO TIRE SHIFT IS350	Kota Sasaki Naoya Yamano	1Lap	49
8	11	JIMGAINER ADVAN F430	Tetsuya Tanaka Katsuyuki Hiranaka	1Lap	49
9	10	JIMGAINER ADVAN F360	Masayuki Ueda Masataka Kawaguchi	1Lap	49
10	43	ARTA Garaiya	Morio Nitta Shinichi Takagi	1Lap	49
11	111	ISHIMATSU with ARKTECH GT3	Daisuke Ikeda Tohjiro Azuma	7laps	47
12	5	MACHGOGOGOSHAKEN320RMACH-GO	Tetsuji Tamanaka Akazame Oyaji	10laps	44
13	69	Thunder Asia MT900R	Melvin Choo Martin Short	10laps	44
14	666	FieLDS BOMEX 320R	Shogo Suho Junichiro Yamashita	14Laps	40
15	87	giraffa GALLARDO RG-3	Hiroyuki Iiri Hisashi Wada	14Laps	40
16	74	COROLLA Axio apr GT	Takuto Iguchi Yuji Kunimoto	16Laps	38

GT500 - Point Ranking

Pos	No	Driver	R1	R2	R3	R4	Total
1	24	J.P.L.de Oliveira Seiji Ara	20	3	8	6	37
2	36	Jyuichi Wakisaka Andre Lotterer		15	15	5	35
3	8	Ralph Firman Takuya Izawa	11		11	11	33
4	38	Yuji Tachikawa Richard Lyons	5	20	2	1	28
5	17	Toshihiro Kaneishi Koudai Tsukakoshi	6	5		15	26
6	3	Ronnie Quintarelli Hironobu Yasuda			4	20	24
7	1	Satoshi Motoyama Benoit Treluyer			20	3	23
8	12	Matsuda Tsugio Sebastien Philippe	8	11		4	23
9	18	Ryo Michigami Takashi Kogure	15	6			21
10	6	Daisuke Ito Bjorn Wirdheim	1	8	5		14
11	35	Hiroaki Ishiura Kazuya Oshima	2	4	6	2	14
12	100	Yuji Ide	3			8	11
13	100	Shinya Hosokawa	3		-	8	11
14	32	Loic Duval Yuki Nakayama	4	2	3		9
15	39	Andre Couto Kohei Hirate		1	1		2

GT300 - Point Ranking

Pos	No	Driver	R1	R2	R3	R4	Total
1	7	Nobuteru Taniguchi Ryo Orime	11	15	11	11	48
2	19	Manabu Orido Tatsuya Kataoka	20	3	6	15	44
3	43	Morio Nitta Shinichi Takagi	15	6	20	1	42
4	2	Hiroki Katoh	5	4	2	20	31
5	46	Kazuki Hoshino Masataka Yanagida	4	11	5	8	28
6	2	Hiroki Yoshimoto	-	4	2	20	26
7	33	Mitsuhiro Kinoshita Masami Kageyama	-	20	-	-	20
8	81	Takayuki Aoki Tomonobu Fujii		5	15		20
9	11	Tetuya Tanaka Katuyuki Hiranaka	8	8		3	19
10	74	Takuto Iguchi Yuji Kunimoto	6	2	3		11
11	31	Yuya Sakamoto Hideki Yamauchi	2		4	5	11
12	26	Haruki Kurosawa	1	1	8		10
13	26	Tsubasa Abe	1	1	8	-	10
14	52	Kouta Sasaki Naoya Yamano	3			4	7
15	66	Koji Yamanishi Atsushi Yogo				6	6
16	2	Kazuho Takahashi	5	-	-	-	5
17	10	Masayuki Ueda Masataka Kawaguchi				2	2
18	5	Tetsuji Tamanaka Akazame Oyaji			1		1