SUPER GT 2008
Round 8 : KYUSHU 300 KM

Round 8 and the penultimate round of the 2008 SUPER GT Championship took place two weekends ago at the AUTOPOLIS circuit in the Oita Prefecture, as the "SUPER GT in KYUSHU 300km". Going into this round, the No. 18 TAKATA NSX pair of Michigami and Kogure jointly leads the drivers championship standings with the Lexus (Toyota) SC430 powered pair of No. 36 Wakisaka and Lotterer. They were followed closely by two NISMO (Nissan) R35 pairs of No. 22 Krumm and Yanagida and No. 23 Motoyama and Trelyer. In the teams championship, the No. 18 (TAKATA) DOME team was in 2nd, 15 points away from the leader No. 36 PETRONAS TOYOTA TOM's. So it is a very tight battle towards the end of this year's championship, with all three major manufacturers : Honda, Nissan and Toyota fighting head to head for both championship titles.

QUALIFYING : Nissan R35 Triumphs While Honda NSX Dominates

The qualifying for the SUPER GT IN KYUSHU 300 km at the AUTOPOLIS circuit (1 lap = 4.674 km) took place on October 18th 2008. This qualifying saw the No. 23 XANAVI NISMO GT-R (drivers: Satoshi Motoyama/Benoit Treluyer) took its 2nd pole position of this season (6th pole position for the Nissan R35 this year). Nevertheless, it was the Honda NSX which dominated the qualifying. The No. 32 EPSON NSX was fastest in the morning session and in the afternoon Super-Lap, other than the No. 23 XANAVI in pole, positions P2 to P4 all went to the Honda NSX; the No. 1 ARTA, No. 32 EPSON and No. 18 TAKATA respectively. The No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX took P8 while the No. 17 REAL NSX ended up in P11, missing out on the afternoon Super-Lap after being caught by a red-flag caused by the No. 39 TOYOTA and subsequently demoted from P10 to P11.

More crucially, of the teams challenging the No. 18 TAKATA's lead in the drivers champioship, joint leader No. 36 was in P7, 3 places down on No. 18's P4 while No. 22 placed last on the starting grid due to a penalty for rear wing height violation (which cancelled all of its timed laps). So it was looking OK for the No. 18 TAKATA in the drivers championship as the only car ahead of it was the No. 23 XANAVI in pole position which was 6 points behind in the drivers championship standings.

It was similarly good news in the teams championship as the leader No. 36 PETRONAS (Lexus) SC430 is in P7 while the teams right behind No. 18 in the standings: No. 38 (Toyota/Lexus SC430), No. 23 and No. 22 (R35 Skylines) are similarly behind them on the starting grid except for the pole sitter No. 23.

RACE DAY : No. 23 XANAVI Wins From Pole

Raceday, October 19th 2008. The race started at 14.00pm and at the first turn of the opening lap, the third place qualifier No. 32 EPSON NSX (Loic Duval) passed the second qualifier, the No. 1 ARTA NSX (Ralph Firman) to move into 2nd position. While this was happening, the pole-sitting No. 23 XANAVI NISMO GT-R (Benoit Treluyer) began to pull away, opening up a gap of 2 seconds by the end of the first lap. After that, Treluyer kept up his blistering pace in No. 23 and widened that gap to more than 4 sec. by the end of lap three.

In contrast, Duval, now running in 2nd position in No. 32, was unable to pick up the pace and was eventually re-passed on lap seven by Firman in car No. 1. This brought the order of the top five back to the original qualifying order. Behind them, No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX (Yuji Ide) had been gradually gaining ground. One after another, Ide passed the NO. 36 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 (Andre Lotterer), the No.35 houzan KRAFT SC430 (Tatsuya Kataoka) and the No.3 YellowHat YMS TOMICA GT-R (Ronnie Quintarelli) before finally also passing the No.18 TAKATA DOME NSX (Takashi Kogure) on lap 14 to move into 5th position.

Higher then expected track temperatures caused accelerated tyre wear and forced a number of teams into early pit-stops, most notable being the No. 22 MOTUL AUTECH (R35) GT-R and the No. 36 PETRONAS (Lexus) SC430. After their spectecular passes, the No. 100 RAYBRIG was also among the teams to make an early pit-stop, on lap 23. But for them, lap 23 is more than one-third of the race distance, so they were able to change drivers and refuel as well. On the next lap No. 1 also pulled into the pit. They too changed drivers (to Takuya Izawa), refuel, and changed tyres but the front tires change took longer than usual delaying the pit stop to 50 sec. This directly benefitted the leading No. 23 XANAVI when they made their pit stop on lap 26. Helped by a lightning quick stop of 28 sec. similarly for driver and tyre change and refuel, they eventually rejoined the race with a bigger margin over No. 1 than before the stop.

When all the teams had finished their pit stops, the effective order was No. 23 in the lead and No.32 P2 with No. 1 in P3. But the No.1 driver Izawa's inconsistency crops up once again and he spins out while running alone just before the last curve of lap 47. This allowed the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX to move into 3rd position. Unfortunately, with ten laps remaining the No. 100 RAYBRIG driven by Hosokawa collided with a GT300 machine - the No. 62 WILLCOM ADVAN VEMAC 408R (which was competing for the GT300 class lead). For this Hosokawa is given a drive-through penalty that dropped him back to 4th position again, putting Izawa in No.1 back in 3rd position.

However, Izawa's tires seemed to be losing grip at that point and he is unable to pick up the pace, which allows Hosokawa in the No.100 RAYBRIG to once again gradually close the gap on him once more. With one lap remaining the two machines change position once again and the race ended with the No. 23 XANAVI R35 taking the win and No. 32 EPSON in P2, No. 100 RAYBRIG in P3 and No. 1 ARTA in P4. But after the race, the race stewarts gave Hosokawa in the No. 100 RAYBRIG an additional 30-sec. time penalty (added to their overall time). Apparently Hosokawa had brushed the No. 1 ARTA NSX when passing it. This penalty dropped No. 100 RAYBRIG all the way down to P9 and allowed No.1 ARTA to regain its 3rd place and the podium finish.

Although they were never in contention for the win, the 2nd place No. 32 EPSON NSX nevertheless got their first podium finish of the season. As for the 3rd place finishers, the No. 1 ARTA NSX had again ran a frantic race, with a spin-out and dump-up with another machine. But with the post-race penalty handed to the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX working in their favour, they were indeed very fortunate to have ended the race on a positive note with their podium finish.

More dissapointingly however was the rather ineffective race the No. 18 TAKATA NSX ran, which saw it finishing in P7, just 1 place ahead of No. 36 PETRONAS TOM's but behind both NISMO R35s (No. 22 finished in P5) as well as the No. 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430 which finished in P4. These are the cars which were right behind the No. 18 in both the drivers and teams championship standings and it meant the No. 18 TAKATA will take a beating in both championship standings at the end of this race.

Of the last NSX, the No. 17 REAL NSX had another uneventful race and finished where it started, in P11.

Race Results

23 XANAVI NISMO GT-R; Satoshi Motoyama, Benoit Treluyer
32 EPSON NSX; Loic DUVAL, Katsuyuki Hiranaka
1 ARTA NSX; Ralph Firman, Takuya Izawa
38 ZENT CERUMO SC430; Yuji Tachikawa, Richard Lyons
22 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R; Michael Krumm, Masataka Yanagida
3 YellowHat YMS TOMICA GT-R; Ronnie Quintarelli, Naoki Yokomizo
18 TAKATA DOME NSX; Ryo Michigami, Takashi Kogure
36 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430; Juichi Wakisaka, Andre Lotterer
100 RAYBRIG NSX; Yuji Ide, Shinya Hosokawa
12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R; Tsugio Matsuda, Sebastien Philippe
17 REAL NSX; Katsutomo Kaneishi, Toshihiro Kaneishi
25 ECLIPSE ADVAN SC430; Takeshi Tsuchiya, Hiroaki Ishiura
39 DENSO DUNLOP SARD SC430; Toranosuke Takagi, Andre Couto
6 ENEOS SC430; Daisuke Ito, Bjorn Wirdheim
35 houzan KRAFT SC430; Peter Dumbreck, Tatsuya Kataoka
24 WOODONE ADVAN Clarion GT-R; J.P.L. De Oliveira, Seiji Ara

CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS

With only 1 more round to go, this year's SUPER GT championship looks set to give us an exciting finale as several teams are now in position to win one or even both championship titles. The next and final race will take place at the Toyota owned FUJI circuit next weekend from November 7th till 9th.

As for the championship standings, their win puts the No.23 XANAVI NISMO GT-R (Satoshi Motoyama/Benoit Treluyer) on top of the drivers championship table now, with a 14 points lead over 2nd placed No. 18 TAKATA NSX. No. 18 themselves have overtaken previous joint leader No. 36 PETRONAS TOM's by 1 point, due to their 1 position higher finish this race. In close proximity behind remains the No. 38 and No. 22 pair of Tachigawa/Lyons and Krumn/Yanagida respectively.

Finally another podium finish despite a messy race sees the defending champion No. 1 ARTA climb the drivers championship ladder, now up to P6. They will definitely lose their drivers title as they are now 25 points behind leader No. 23 XANAVI and the maximum possible points they can take from the last race, assuming they win the race, takes pole and scores the fastest lap, is still only 24 points, 1 point short.....

No. 100 RAYBRIG pair of Ide and Hosokawa are in P9, No. 32 EPSON pair of Duval and Hiranaka are in P12 and finally the No. 17 REAL Kaneishi cousins are in P18, still effectively at the bottom of the table.

Drivers championship standings

23 Satoshi Motoyama, Benoit Treluyer - 74pts
18 Ryo Michigami, Takashi Kogure - 60pts
36 Juichi Wakisaka, Andre Lotterer - 59pts
38 Yuji Tachikawa, Richard Lyons - 57pts
22 Michael Krumm, Masataka Yanagida - 57pts
1 Ralph Firman, Takuya Izawa - 49pts
12 Tsugio Matsuda, Sebastien Philippe - 41pts
100 Yuji Ide, Shinya Hosokawa - 41pts
35 Peter Dumbreck, Tatsuya Kataoka - 40pts
3 Ronnie Quintarelli, Naoki Yokomizo - 39pts
32 Loic DUVAL, Katsuyuki Hiranaka - 35pts
24 Joao Paulo Lima De Oliveira, Seiji Ara - 34pts
6 Daisuke Ito, Bjorn Wirdheim - 28pts
25 Takeshi Tsuchiya, Hiroaki Ishiura - 20pts
17 Katsutomo Kaneishi, Toshihiro Kaneishi - 15pts

Note : Some drivers/teams have been left out for sake of clarity

In the teams championship rankings, No. 36 PETRONAS TOYOTA TEAM TOM's continue to lead the standings thanks to the large lead they carry coming into this race. Meanwhile No. 18 TAKATA has now dropped 2 places, down to P4 and overtaken by both No. 23 NISMO and No. 38 CERUMO, as would be expected based on their finishing order in this race.

No. 100 TEAM KUNIMITSU (RAYBRIG) has climbed 1 step, to P6 and just behind the second NISMO No. 22 team. Similarly, their podium finish sees the No. 1 ARTA team climb 1 place to P11 in the teams championship. In P13 is No. 32 NAKAJIMA RACING (EPSON) again 1 place higher while No. 17 REAL RACING with LEON continues to occupy P15, 1 from bottom.

Teams championship standings

36 PETRONAS TOYOTA TEAM TOM'S - 87pts
23 NISMO - 82pts
38 TOYOTA TEAM CERUMO - 75pts
18 DOME RACING TEAM - 74pts
22 NISMO - 67pts
100 TEAM KUNIMITSU - 60pts
35 TOYOTA TEAM KRAFT - 60pts
12 TEAM IMPUL - 55pts
24 KONDO RACING - 55pts
3 HASEMI MOTOR SPORT - 52pts
1 AUTOBACS RACING TEAM AGURI (ARTA) - 52pts
6 ENEOS TOYOTA Team LeMans - 50pts
32 NAKAJIMA RACING - 49pts
25 TOYOTA TEAM TSUCHIYA - 39pts
17 REAL RACING with LEON - 27pts
39 TOYOTA TEAM SARD - 20pts

There is still a good chance for Honda to win both the championships, as they are 14 and 13 points behind the leader in the drivers and teams championship standings respectively. The maximum possible points score in a race is 24 points for the drivers championship and 23 points in the teams championship. Significantly though, No. 18 will get further weight reduction for the final race due to its P7 finish (along with No. 36) while the R35s of No. 22 and No. 23 as well as the SC430 of No. 38 will get additional weight penalties (quite hefty for the case of No. 23). This should help No. 18 TAKATA NSX's effort in the final race. Sadly, No. 18 TAKATA is the only NSX team with a fighting chance for both the championships as No. 100 RAYBRIG is too far away. As is No. 1 ARTA, who is even further behind thanks to their erratic form this season.

The season finale next weekend at FUJI should be a most interesting race indeed, a fitting finale to this year's interesting season.