Motoyama and Treluyer take their third Super GT win of 201116/10/2011
TWIN RING MOTEGI, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan
Super GT Round 8, Final Round of 2011
The final round (Round 8) of the 2011 Super GT championship took place at TWIN RING MOTEGI on Sunday 16 October. 26,000 spectators attended on race day. Satoshi Motoyama and Benoit Treluyer (NISMO/BS) started from fifth on the grid and gained positions with POTENZA performance in the early stages of the race. They moved up to second position after their pit stop and took the lead with 12 laps to go to claim their third win of the season.
Qualifying
The knock out system of qualifying got under way in wet conditions. Masataka Yanagida and Ronnie Quintarelli (MOLA/MI) the championship leaders clinched their third pole position of the year. Hiroaki Ishiura and Takuto Iguchi (LEXUS TEAM SARD/MI) qualified second and the driver pairing of Tsugio Matsuda and JP de Oliveira (IMPUL/BS) were third.
Race
The morning rain stopped before the start of the race with the weather improving quickly, meaning the race got underway in dry conditions. It was the first chance all weekend to fit slick tyres for a dry track, so the teams had to make a decision on their choice of compound using previous data and the help of Bridgestone’s tyre engineers. Matsuda and Oliveira followed and pushed the pole sitters Yanagida and Quintarelli in the first part of the race. Motoyama and Treluyer gained positions to move up to third and then clinched second place after their pit stop. They then overtook the leader with 12 laps to go, on lap 41 of the 53 lap race.
Winning Drivers
Satoshi Motoyama:
“Our aim for the final round was to win, so I am happy we did it. But it was a shame that we were not able to get the championship. I am satisfied that we had our best race at the final round. Our tyre selection from our Bridgestone engineer was great and we appreciated this support to help us take our third win this year.”
Benoit Treluyer:
“We got another win thanks to Satoshi’s great drive again. I was worried a little because we were not able to drive on slick tyres before the race but there was no need to worry. This is the winning power of NISMO and the high technical capability of Bridgestone. ”
Bridgestone tyre engineer: Yoshihiro Hosoya
“It was a very hard and difficult race for us as the tyre manufacturer. We were not able to test dry tyres at all before the race, so we gave all our performance data to the teams and helped them to make a decision on tyre selection. We could not win the championship this year but our POTENZA fitted cars achieved seven wins out of eight races.”
