Cerumo Toyota Takes Fuji Pole as Oyu Beats Sakaguchi

Photo: SUPER GT

Toyota squad Cerumo scored an emotional pole position for this weekend’s second round of the SUPER GT season at Fuji Speedway as Toshiki Oyu caused an upset by beating Racing Project Bandoh counterpart Sena Sakaguchi to the top spot in qualifying.

The Yokohama-shod No. 19 Bandoh Toyota GR Supra was the clear favorite for pole heading into Q2 following fastest times in both morning practice and Q1 for Yuji Kunimoto, with the rising track temperatures appearing to benefit the team as Kunimoto topped Q1 by three tenths of a second.

Hiroaki Ishiura had been third in Q1 aboard the No. 38 Cerumo car, but Oyu went fastest of all in Q2 as he set a lap of 1:26.093 to eclipse Sakaguchi by just 0.083 seconds.

It followed Cerumo’s opening-lap crash at the season opener at Okayama last month, with both Ishiura and team director Yuji Tachikawa paying tribute to the mechanics for getting the car ready in time in a tearful post-qualifying interview.

Another car that was caught up in the same incident, the No. 16 ARTA Honda Civic Type R-GT, was third-fastest in the hands of Ren Sato, 0.274 seconds away from pole, with Tomoki Nojiri making it an all-ARTA second row aboard the sister No. 8 car.

Daiki Sasaki put the only Nissan Z to make it through to Q2, the No. 3 NISMO NDDP car, fifth on the grid, ahead of the two TOM’S GR Supras, Giuliano Alesi in the No. 37 car leading the No. 1 of Sho Tsuboi that is carrying the maximum 40 kg of success ballast following its victory at Okayama.

Yuhi Sekiguchi also shrugged off 22 kg of ballast to qualifying the SARD Toyota he shares with Sacha Fenestraz eighth.

The Rookie Racing GR Supra that finished second at Okayama was the only member of the Toyota contingent not to make Q2, with Kazuya Oshima qualifying 11th ahead of Bertrand Baguette’s Impul Nissan.

NISMO’s No. 23 car was slowest of all in Q1 in the hands of Mitsunori Takaboshi, and will line up 15th and last for Sunday’s three-hour race.

In GT300, the D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo came out on top in a close battle with Subaru for pole position, as Charlie Fagg eclipsed Hideki Yamauchi by just 0.062 seconds in the Q2 pole shootout.

Fagg’s teammate Tomonobu Fujii was the driver to beat in Q1 as he set a benchmark of 1:35.674 in his Q1 group, almost half a second faster than Takuto Iguchi aboard the works R&D Sport-run Subaru BRZ, which topped the other group.

Yamauchi set an early benchmark of 1:34.882 in Q2 in the Subaru, but this was eclipsed by Fagg’s effort of 1:34.820, which put the D’station Aston on pole for the second time since it debuted last year.

Toyota junior driver Rikuto Kobayashi put the CarGuy MKS Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 an impressive third on the grid, with teammate Zak O’Sullivan having been second to Iguchi in his Q1 group, ahead of the Team Mach Toyota 86 Mother Chassis of Yusuke Shiotsu and Kei Cozzolino’s PONOS Racing Ferrari.

The championship-leading LEON Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo was only able to qualify 14th in the hands of Naoya Gamou carrying the maximum 50 kg success penalty for its victory at Okayama, although the best of the Mercedes-AMG, the Team UpGarage car, was only 11th-fastest despite carrying no ballast.

Despite a favorable Balance of Performance adjustment for the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 since the Okayama opener, the No. 0 JLOC car was eliminated in Q1 in the hands of Takashi Kogure and will start 22nd, one place ahead of the Velorex Ferrari that had been third-fastest in practice earlier in the day.

Sunday’s second round of the SUPER GT season is due to begin at 2:10 p.m. local time (1:10 a.m. EDT).