2013 SUPER GT : A BREATH-TAKING CONTEST DOWN TO THE LINE! RAYBRIG HSV-010 AMENDED LAST YEAR'S LOSS WITH STUNNING VICTORY

2013 AUTOBACS SUPER GT R1. GT500 Winners : Takuya Izawa/Takashi Kogure - Takuya Izawa/Takashi Kogure

On the afternoon of April 7, the OKAYAMA GT 300km RACE, Round 1 of the 2013 AUTOBACS SUPER GT, took place at the Okayama International Circuit in Okayama Pref. The winner in the GT500 class was the Takuya Izawa/Takashi Kogure driven by (Takuya Izawa/Takashi Kogure). The winner of the GT300 class was the No.11 GAINER DIXCEL SLS driven by Katsuyuki Hiranaka and Bjorn Wirdheim.

2013 AUTOBACS SUPER GT R1. GT300 Winners : Katsuyuki Hiranaka/Bjorn Wirdheim - No.11 GAINER DIXCEL SLS

Upsets mark the early going in different conditions from the qualifying

Under a thin cloud cover, but with a chance of rain looming, the track was dry with the air temperature at 11 degrees C. and the track surface temperature at 21 degrees as the starting time for the race approached at 2:00 PM at Okayama Circuit for Sunday's race. Finally, the formation lap of the season's opening race rolled into action. But, immediately there was an unexpected mishap as No. 32 Epson HSV-010 (Ryo Michigami), starting from 2nd position on the grid ran off the track at the first turn. Michigami was able to recover his position quickly, but the pace car made another lap as a result, reducing the race distance to 81 laps when it finally started at 2:07 PM.

Just after the start, the No. 17 KEIHIN HSV-010 (Toshihiro Kaneishi) and the No. 100 RAYBRIG HSV-010 (Takuya Izawa) caught and passed the No. 24 D'station ADVAN GT-R (Michael Krumm) to move up into 3rd and 4th positions respectively behind the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Ronnie Quintarelli) and the No. 32 Epson HSV-010. Just as No. 24 had dropped to 5th position, the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN SC430 (Andre Couto), which had also had difficulty in warming up the tires, dropped all the way back to 10th position by the end of the first lap.

Behind the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R leading the race, the No. 32 Epson HSV-010 was also having trouble keeping a fast pace in the early going, and on the fifth lap it was passed by the No. 17 KEIHIN HSV-010, the No. 100 RAYBRIG HSV-010 and then the No. 18 Weider Modolo HSV-010 (Naoki Yamamoto) to be left in their wake.

At this point in the race the leading order was No. 23 followed by No. 17, No. 100, No. 18 and No. 12, and on the seventh lap three Lexus machines, the No. 37 KeePer TOM'S SC430 (Andrea Caldarelli), the No. 36 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 (James Rossiter) and the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430 (Kohei Hirate) passed the No. 32 Epson HSV-010 to move into 6th, 7th and 8th places. But, in the charge of these Lexus machine the No. 36 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 received damage to one of its wheels in a brush up with No. 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430 on the sixth lap and had to return to the pit on lap eight and forced to lose its hard-earned position.

From the ninth lap the leaders began to come up on GT300 class back markers, but the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R continued to run strong in the lead. Two or three seconds behind, the No. 17, No. 100 and No. 18 HSV-010 were staging a tight nose-to-tail battle for 2nd place. Also, behind the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda) in 5th position cars No. 37, No. 38 and the No. 39 DENSO KOBELCO SC430 (Hiroaki Ishiura) were in a fierce battle of their own. In this way the early stages of the race continued to be marked by battles between cars of the same maker.

Amid these contests, the No. 18 Weider Modolo HSV-010 passed the No. 100 RAYBRIG HSV-010 on the 15th lap to move into 3rd position, and on the 16th lap the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430 caught and passed the No. 37 KeePer TOM'S SC430 to take 6th position, and for a while these positions would hold.

An intense battle unfolds over the last ten laps

Around the 23rg and 24th laps a light rain began to fall and the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R began to lose some of its margin of lead, but it was still firmly in the lead when the teams began to make their routine pit stops from around lap 35. The leader finally made its pit stop on lap 43, changing drivers from Quintarelli to Masataka Yanagida, and when all the teams had finished their pit stops by lap 48, No. 23 was back in the lead with Yanagida at the wheel, followed another car on Michelin tires in 2nd place, the No. 18 Weider Modolo HSV-010 (Frederic Makowiecki).

After the 60th lap, however, the No. 18 Weider Modolo HSV-010 was unable to hold the pace and the No. 100 RAYBRIG HSV-010 (Takashi Kogure) and No. 17 KEIHIN HSV-010 (Koudai Tsukakoshi) were closing in on it. Once again it was a battle for 2nd position between three HSV-010 machines, the contender were down to two when the No.18 Weider Modolo HSV-010 suddenly spun out by itself on Atwood Curve of lap the 68. This put the No. 100 RAYBRIG HSV-010 and No. 17 KEIHIN HSV-010 in 2nd and 3rd places respectively, while the No. 18 Weider Modolo HSV-010 dropped to 4th position.

Now in 2nd and 3rd positions, the No. 100 RAYBRIG HSV-010 and No. 17 KEIHIN HSV-010 began to close in on the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R as its pace slowed after the 70th lap, perhaps because of the dropping track temperature. A nip-and-tuck battle continued between the three machines until the 77th lap, when the No. 100 RAYBRIG HSV-010 started to draw alongside the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R on the infield, and despite Yanagida's desperate efforts to hold them off, the two HSV-010 machines both managed to pass the GT-R over the course of the double hairpin and the Mike Knight Corner! With this, the No. 100 RAYBRIG HSV-010 had finally taken the lead.

Having now dropped to 3rd position, the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R lacked the speed to win back the lead, leaving the No. 100 RAYBRIG HSV-010 to race on to the win. The No. 17 KEIHIN HSV-010 finished 2nd, and after leading for most of the race, the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R ended up 3rd. In 4th place came the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO SC4304, having managed to pass the No. 18 Weider Modolo HSV-010 on the last lap.

For the No. 100 RAYBRIG HSV-010 that had lost the victory in the final moments of last year's season opener, there was sweet revenge in this day's victory by the new driver team of Takuya Izawa and Takashi Kogure.

SUBARU BRZ gets a good start from pole position, but …

The start of the GT300 class race came off without mishap. Starting form pole position, the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Tetsuya Yamano) led the race in the early running, but soon the No. 3 S Road NDDP GT-R (Kazuki Hoshino), the No.11 GAINER DIXCEL SLS (Bjorn Wirdheim) and the No. 87 LA SEINE LAMBORGHINI GT3 (Hideki Yamauchi) were closing in from behind. Unable to hold them off, the No. 31 BRZ quickly fell to 4th position. Despite having been strong in the rain of the qualifying on Saturday, the JAF GT spec BRZ was unable to match the speed of the powerful FIA GT3 spec machines on a dry track. The battle for the now came down to the No. 3 GT-R and the No. 11 R8. But, soon the No. 3 began losing speed, and on lap 10 Wirdheim in car No.11 passed Hoshino to take the lead. From there, the No.11 SLS pulled away at a fast pace and succeeded in opening up a lead of about 20 seconds over the No. 87 LAMBORGHINI by the time the teams began to make their routine pit stops from around lap 35.

The GAINER DIXCEL SLS dominates for 90% of the race

The No. 11 GAINER DIXCEL SLS was the last among the leaders to make its pit stop on lap 47. With its considerable margin of lead, Katsuyuki Hiranaka was able to assume the front position in the race with no problem after the driver change. Hiranaka was five seconds ahead of the No. 4 GSR HATSUNEMIKU BMW (Tatsuya Kataoka > Nobuteru Taniguchi), which had moved into 2nd position after making an early pit stop. It looked at this point as if Taniguchi in car No. 4 would be able to close the gap on Hiranaka in car No. 11. But, running at a fast pace of 1'30 to 1'31 per lap, Hiranaka began to widen his lead again to first 10 and then 15 seconds. At one point he built up a lead of nearly 22 seconds that gave him a comfortable margin of lead to cruise on to victory unchallenged. For the winning No.11 GAINER DIXCEL SLS team GAINER, this was the second consecutive win here at Okayama, having won last year using the Audi R8 LMS. Also, this was the first win for the Mercedes Benz SLS AMG GT3, which began competing in GT300 from last season. Finishing 2nd was the No. 4 GSR HATSUNEMIKU BMW. The race for 3rd place was a nip-and-tuck battle between the No. 87 LA SEINE LAMBORGHINI GT3 (Hiroki Yoshimoto) and the No. 33 HANKOOK PORSCHE (Tomonobu Fujii) that continued until the second lap from the finish. But, in the heat of the brawl, there was a collision that caused the No. 33 PORSCHE to fall back and concede the win to the No. 87 LAMBORGHINI, which went on to claim the third spot on the winners' podium. Running at a constant pace throughout the race, the veteran driver pair of the No. 52 OKINAWA-IMP SLS (Hironori Takeuchi > Takeshi Tsuchiya) finished 4th, while the pole-starting No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Yamano > Kota Sasaki) finished 5th. The No. 55 ARTA CR-Z GT (Shinichi Takagi > Takashi Kobayashi) that had crashed in the free practice on qualifying day was able to start the race from the beck of the grid after frantic repair work. In the race, despite some trouble, the team managed to finish 12th.

Winner Comments

GT500 class-No.100 RAYBRIG HSV-010

Takuya Izawa
"Last year we just missed getting the win here in the opening round at Okayama, so I felt very disappointed, and it ended up being a tough season for the HSV-010 GT. But during the off-season the people at the Honda research department worked hard to develop us a great machine and the people at Bridgestone were also determined to make a strong comeback. Also, with Kogure-san coming to the team this season as my new partner, it was a situation where I felt that we had to get a win. What's more, I have been told that our team is probably the one that has been farthest from victory in the GT500 class for some time, so I am very pleased with this victory today."

Takashi Kogure
"I came to Team Kunimitsu this season, but this is actually the first time I have changed teams since coming to SUPER GT and everything has been new for me. But they have put together a team organization and members that can aim for the championship title, and the determination of the not only the team but also the people at Honda and Bridgestone has given me strong motivation. So, I'm glad we won. But, we can't sit on our laurels now, because this is going to be the last season for the HSV-010 GT, I want to win the title and pay back everyone around me for their great efforts."

GT300 class-No.11 GAINER DIXCEL SLS

Katsuyuki Hiranaka
"In a word, I'm very relieved to get this win. This year a very fast driver in Bjorn [Wirdheim] has come to the team and Mercedes Benz has prepared us a new car. As for the tire, Dunlop has worked very hard on the development and given us tires that can handle a long race, and we have got plenty of test data for us to work from. The team has been doing everything possible to win, so I felt some real pressure to win. So, I am honestly very relieved that we were able to win."

Bjorn Wirdheim
"I came into this race in a different car and with different tires from last season, but Hiranaka-san and I have been friends for some time and I know he is someone I can trust, and since it is a veteran team in the GT300 class, I wasn't worried about anything. Also, we were able to do plenty of tests in the off-season that enabled me to make the necessary adjustments in my driving. In the official practice on Saturday, I could feel that we had a fast package and that increased my confidence. So, I'm really glad we won."

GT-500 Race result

Po	No.	Driver	Rd1	Total	Behind	WH
1	100	Takuya Izawa Takashi Kogure	20	20	-	40
2	17	Koudai Tsukakoshi Toshihiro Kaneishi	15	15	-5	30
3	23	Masataka Yanagida Ronnie Quintarelli	11	11	-9	22
4	38	Yuji Tachikawa Kohei Hirate	8	8	-12	16
5	18	Naoki Yamamoto Frederic Makowiecki	6	6	-14	12
6	12	Tsugio Matsuda Joao Paulo Lima De Oliveira	5	5	-15	10
7	6	Kazuya Oshima Yuji Kunimoto	4	4	-16	8
8	39	Juichi Wakisaka Hiroaki Ishiura	3	3	-17	6
9	8	Ralph Firman Kosuke Matsuura	2	2	-18	4
10	1	Satoshi Motoyama Yuhi Sekiguchi	1	1	-19	2

GT-300 Race result

Po	No.	Driver	Rd1	Total	Behind	WH
1	11	Katsuyuki Hiranaka Bjorn Wirdheim	20	20	-	40
2	4	Nobuteru Taniguchi Tatsuya Kataoka	15	15	-5	30
3	87	Hideki Yamauchi Hiroki Yoshimoto	11	11	-9	22
4	52	Hironori Takeuchi Takeshi Tsuchiya	8	8	-12	16
5	61	Tetsuya Yamano Kota Sasaki	6	6	-14	12
6	62	Haruki Kurosawa Masanobu Kato	5	5	-15	10
7	16	Hideki Mutoh Yuhki Nakayama	4	4	-16	8
8	33	Masami Kageyama Tomonobu Fujii	3	3	-17	6
9	48	Hiroshi Takamori Katsumasa Chiyo	2	2	-18	4
10	0	Kyosuke Mineo Naoki Yokomizo	1	1	-19	2