Race report

Super GT Dream Race

Fuji Dream Race: Karthikeyan wins wild second race

Honda driver Narain Karthikeyan triumphed in a chaotic second leg of the SUPER GT x DTM Dream Race at Fuji, as Audi and BMW both made it on to the podium.

Jamie Klein

Edited: Nov 25, 2019, 1:31 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Karthikeyan led the bulk of the race and survived two safety car restarts en route to his first victory in any category since the Brno round of Auto GP in 2013.

Holding second off the start, the Indian racer picked off poleman Loic Duval at the start of the second lap and controlled the race until making his pitstop on lap 16 of 31, hanging on to the advantage after debris from Duval's car - who had to make an unscheduled pitstop for a puncture - caused the first of three caution periods.

Another Audi puncture, this time for DTM champion Rene Rast, triggered the second safety car period, with Benoit Treluyer inheriting the lead having stopped under the first safety car.

But Karthikeyan retook the lead when Treluyer had to serve his mandatory pitstop and survived the final-lap shootout after a series of incidents further back in the pack that left debris on the track led to the reappearance of the safety car.

Amid the chaos, DTM pair Marco Wittmann and Duval emerged in second and third places, the pair fighting for the runner-up spot until the final corner.

Wittmann ran Duval out wide, but the Frenchman kept the throttle nailed and returned to the track ahead - only to be handed a one-second penalty, giving the place back to Wittmann.

Behind, Naoki Yamamoto made up three places on the final lap to take fourth in the Kunimitsu Honda NSX-GT, having made a second stop under the second safety car.

Kamui Kobayashi made it three DTM runners and two BMWs in the top five, followed by Daisuke Nakajima in his last race outing for the Mugen squad.

Mike Rockenfeller was second-best of the Audi contingent in seventh ahead of Ryo Hirakawa in the TOM'S Lexus that won Saturday's first race in the hands of Nick Cassidy. Audi pair Rast and Treluyer made up the top 10.

Koudai Tsukakoshi was well positioned to make it on the podium for a second time in as many days, taking the second restart behind Karthikeyan, but spun his Real Racing Honda exiting Turn 3, with Tomoki Nojiri unable to avoid him in the ARTA NSX-GT.

Several corners later, mayhem ensued as Lexus pair Yuji Kunimoto and Kazuya Oshima made contact and spun, causing three more LC500s - those of Heikki Kovalainen, Kazuki Nakajima and Hiroaki Ishiura - and Kohei Hirate's Nissan to pile into the back of the melee.

Kunimoto was later handed a 40-second time penalty, although this cost him only one place, dropping him from 15th to 16th.

Nissan also suffered a race to forget, with only two GT-Rs making the finish, the best of those being the NISMO entry of Tsugio Matsuda in 11th place.

Race results:

Pos. Driver Car Gap 1st india Narain Karthikeyan Nakajima Honda NSX-GT 31 laps 2nd germany Marco Wittmann RBM BMW M4 +0.935 3rd France Loic Duval Phoenix Audi RS 5 +0.825 4th Japan Naoki Yamamoto Kunimitsu Honda NSX-GT +3.412 5th Japan Kamui Kobayashi RBM BMW M4 +3.743 6th Japan Daisuke Nakajima Mugen Honda NSX-GT +4.356 7th germany Mike Rockenfeller Abt-Audi RS 5 +4.536 8th. Japan Ryo Hirakawa TOM'S Lexus LC500 +4.681 9th germany Rene Rast Rosberg-Audi RS 5 +5.624 10th France Benoit Treluyer WRT-Audi RS 5 +7.226 11th Japan Tsugio Matsuda NISMO Nissan GT-R +7.542 12th Japan Mitsunori Takaboshi Kondo Nissan GT-R +7.635 13th italy Alex Zanardi RBM BMW M4 +8.950 14th finland Heikki Kovalainen SARD Lexus LC500 +9.310 15th Japan Kazuya Oshima LeMans Lexus LC500 +9.310 16th Japan Yuji Kunimoto Bandoh Lexus LC500 +5 laps 17th United Kingdom James Rossiter Impul Nissan GT-R +5 laps 18th Japan Kohei Hirate B-Max Racing Nissan GT-R +5 laps 19th Japan Kazuki Nakajima TOM'S Lexus LC500 +5 laps 20th Japan Hiroaki Ishiura Cerumo Lexus LC500 +5 laps 21st Japan Koudai Tsukakoshi Real Honda NSX-GT +6 laps 22nd Japan Tomoki Nojiri ARTA Honda NSX-GT +6 laps

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Miyata completes Fuji GT300 Sprint Cup double

Next article Duval: Safety car "saved me" after early puncture

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

"Not allowed, not made possible": Was BMW denied its title chance?

DTM

DTM DTM

Hockenheim

32 min

"Not allowed, not made possible": Was BMW denied its title chance?

Max Verstappen: FAQ on his GTWC Europe debut

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1 41 min

Max Verstappen: FAQ on his GTWC Europe debut

Pedro Acosta: "I'm going to Ducati to learn from Marc Marquez, not to beat him on same bike"

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP

Indonesian GP

1 h

Pedro Acosta: "I'm going to Ducati to learn from Marc Marquez, not to beat him on same bike"

Rwanda turns to F1 as it moves forward from a chequered past

Formula 1

Rwanda turns to F1 as it moves forward from a chequered past

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts