Motoyama and Treluyer take their second Super GT win of the season02/10/2011
AUTOPOLIS, Oita Prefecture, Japan
Super GT Round 7
Round seven of the 2011 Super GT Championship took place at AUTOPOLIS last weekend (Sunday 2 October). Super GT made its return to AUTOPOLIS after a year’s absence and 23,500 spectators attended on race day.
Satoshi Motoyama and Benoit Treluyer (NISMO/BS) started from 12th on the grid after spinning and crashing during the qualifying session, but gained positions in the first half of the race and took the lead at the half way point. They then kept their position to secure their second win of the season.
Qualifying
Hiroaki Ishiura and Takuto Iguchi (LEXUS TEAM SARD/MI) took their third pole position of the season. Masataka Yanagida and Ronnie Quintarelli (MOLA/MI) qualified second and Toshihiro Kaneishi and Koudai Tsukakoshi (KEIHIN REAL RACING/BS) were third.
Race
Pole sitters Ishiura and Iguchi made a good start and were leading at the beginning of the race. In the following group, the driver pairing of Motoyama and Treluyer set the pace and gained positions, then leading at the middle of the race. After the driver change from Motoyama to Treluyer, they kept a consistent pace and created a gap from the rest of the field, scoring their second win since the first race of the year. As a result of this victory, they have kept alive their hopes of winning the 2011 title at the final round in Motegi. Ishiura and Iguchi stopped just two laps from the finish due to an engine failure while they were running in second position, giving Yanagida and Quintarelli second place. After changing their strategy early on in the race and making two pit stops, Yuji Tachikawa and Kohei Hirate (LEXUS TEAM ZENT CERMO/BS) got up to third position.
Winning Drivers
Satoshi Motoyama:
“We had to win this race to retain the chance of competing for the championship. I was more than happy that we did it. Our car was very good and the tyres were great. We were able to keep a consistent pace and our tyres enabled us to overtake when we wanted. Thank you to Bridgestone.”
Benoit Treluyer:
“Today’s win was thanks to Satoshi’s great driving. I just had to drive my stint towards the finish line, and this is also a win from Bridgestone, as they provided us with very consistent grip from start to finish.”
Bridgestone tyre engineer: Yoshihiro Hosoya
“Congratulations to NISMO, it was a great race for the NISMO team. Race day temperatures were low, air and track. The track surface of AUTOPOLIS is fairly severe and hard on the tyres, so we had difficult conditions but we proved our superior tyre technology by winning. Tachikawa and Hirate had a good race after making the correct judgment in the early stages of the race, changing their strategy to make two pit stops in order to obtain third position. We will keep strongly supporting our teams to help them towards winning the championship at the final round.”
