Oyu, Ishiura End Cerumo Toyota Victory Drought at Fuji

Photo: SUPER GT

Toyota SUPER GT squad Cerumo ended six-year victory drought in Sunday’s second race of the season at Fuji Speedway as Hiroaki Ishiura and Toshiki Oyu converted their pole position into a comfortable win in the three-hour Golden Week classic.

Aboard the No. 38 Toyota GR Supra, Oyu built up a significant advantage over the field over his two stints, handing over to Ishiura with a little over an hour left on the clock.

Ishiura inherited a lead of over 30 seconds over the No. 1 TOM’S Toyota that had moved up to a net second despite its 40 kg success handicap, and took the checkered flag with 11.969 seconds in hand over the car shared by Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita.

It marked Cerumo’s first win since the 2019 Fuji Golden Week race, when Ishiura was paired with now-team director Yuji Tachikawa, with Oyu scoring a first win since moving from Honda to Toyota at the start of last season.

Completing the podium was the No. 100 Team Kunimitsu Honda Civic Type-R GT, as Tadasuke Makino beat Kazuki Hiramine’s Team Impul Nissan in an entertaining battle.

The early stages of the race were characterized by poleman Oyu steadily building his lead over the Racing Project Bandoh Toyota of Yuji Kunimoto, with the two ARTA Hondas of Hiroki Otsu and Tomoki Nojiri giving chase in the early stages.

Oyu had already got the gap up to ten seconds by the time of the one and only full-course yellow of the race, which was triggered when the Helm Motorsport Nissan GT300 car making contact and spinning into retirement exiting Turn 1.

Nojiri was the first of the leading cars to make a pit stop on lap 27 of an eventual 116, staying at the wheel of the No. 8 car, but the No. 16 machine of Otsu stayed out until the one-hour mark had elapsed and lost considerable ground in the process.

By the time the window for driver changes opened on lap 38, Otsu had already been passed by multiple cars, with Yuhi Sekiguchi fighting his way up to third aboard the SARD Toyota that had started eighth and Tsuboi moving up to fourth.

Pitting on lap 40, Oyu maintained the lead through the first round of stops as Nojiri jumped to second courtesy of the undercut, with the TOM’S car that Tsuboi handed over to Yamashita jumping to a net third with a quick stop.

The Yokohama-shod Bandoh Toyota that had run second slipped down the order as Kunimoto handed over to Sena Sakaguchi, who was back in the pits some 25 minutes later for an emergency stop that dropped that car out of contention.

Oyu continued to extend the gap out front in the second stint from Nojiri, who was some 20 seconds adrift when the two leading drivers both pitted with a little over an hour to go to hand over to Ishiura and Nobuharu Matsushita respectively.

However, Matsushita began to struggle for pace relatively early in his stint, and was powerless to stop Tsuboi — now back at the wheel of the No. 1 Toyota for the final stint — from coming through in the fight for second.

Next in the queue by this stage was the Impul Nissan of Hiramine, who had taken over from Bertrand Baguette on lap 39 and made a succession of overtakes to move from ninth after the first round of stops to fourth after the car’s second stop on lap 76.

Hiramine passed Matsushita for second on lap 87, with the latter quickly losing further positions, but the Impul car couldn’t catch the TOM’S car in second and instead had to focus on fending off the fast-approaching Kunimitsu Honda of Makino.

After several laps of the two drivers running nose-to-tail, Makino made a robust move on lap 106 at Turn 10 to give the Honda he shared with Naoki Yamamoto the final spot on the podium, albeit 24.1 seconds down on the winning Cerumo Toyota.

Hiramine held on for fourth ahead of Sacha Fenestraz in the SARD Toyota, while Nirei Fukuzumi charged from outside of the points to claim sixth in the Rookie Racing Toyota he shared with Kazuya Oshima that was carrying 32 kg of success ballast.

That keeps Fukuzumi and Oshima joint second in the standings with Oyu and Ishiura, albeit 14 points behind defending champions Tsuboi and Yamashita.

Nissan’s works NISMO team salvaged eighth place for the No. 23 car of Mitsunori Takaboshi and Katsumasa Chiyo that had started 15th and last, one place behind the No. 37 TOM’S Toyota of Ukyo Sasahara and Giuliano Alesi.

Matsushita eventually faded to ninth in the No. 8 ARTA Honda, while the sister No. 16 car was 10th before being handed a penalty for late contact between Ren Sato and Daiki Sasaki in the No. 3 NISMO Nissan that took the final point instead.

Last-Lap Subaru Heartbreak Hands Win to Velorex Ferrari

A dramatic GT300 battle was settled in favor of the Velorex Ferrari 296 GT3 of Roberto Merhi and Yoshiaki Katayama as disaster struck the race-leading Subaru on the final lap.

The R&D Sport-run Subaru BRZ of Takuto Iguchi and Hideki Yamauchi had looked to have done just enough to take a first win since 2022 as Iguchi managed a rapidly-dwindling lead over the Ferrari of ex-Formula 1 driver Merhi in the closing stages.

But that was until Iguchi dramatically slowed and pulled off the circuit on the run down to Turn 10 on the very final lap of the race, with smoke pouring from the car’s hood.

That allowed Merhi and Katayama to complete a miracle comeback from 27th on the grid, which had started with the Spanish driver tearing through the field in the early stages, making it up inside the top ten inside the first 30 minutes of the race.

It marked a first win for both drivers, a first for ex-Toyota GT500 team Team LeMans in the GT300 class and a first for Ferrari machinery since 2009.

The pole-winning D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo had looked like a strong bet for the win from the early stages of the race, with Tomonobu Fujii leading the early stages ahead of the Subaru started by Yamauchi.

Both the PONOS Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 and LEON Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo gained an advantage by pitting on lap 19 under the FCY, which put the PONOS car of Kei Cozzolino into the net lead until Fujii passed Cozzolino at the halfway mark.

On lap 55, Fujii suffered a left-rear puncture exiting the final corner, which prompted him to pit for a second time immediately to hand over to Charlie Fagg, but left the D’station car without the necessary fuel to make it to the finish of the race.

Fagg made the car’s final pit stop on lap 99, dropping to third behind the Subaru and Velorex Ferrari, and was promoted to second by the Subaru’s late failure.

CarGuy MKS Racing Ferrari duo Rikuto Kobayashi and Zak O’Sullivan finished third on the road in just the team’s second race, but a 10-second time penalty for a pit infraction dropped the car to fourth, instead promoting the Inging Toyota GR86 GT of Hibiki Taira and Yuui Tsutsumi to the final step on the podium.

Fifth place for the LEON Racing Mercedes-AMG, despite carrying the maximum 50 kg of success ballast, keeps Naoya Gamou and Togo Suganami in the lead of the championship by 11 points, while the PONOS Ferrari ended up sixth.

Despite not completing the final lap, the Subaru was classified eighth as the remainder of the field ended up a lap or more behind the winning car.