Fuji Super GT: Real Racing gives new Honda first win

Bertrand Baguette and Koudai Tsukakoshi took an ultimately dominant win in the #17 Honda, having been locked in battle with the #8 ARTA NSX for much of the race until Tomoki Nojiri spun while under pressure from Tsukakoshi on lap 36 of 66.

It marks the first win for Baguette and Tsukakoshi as a duo, as well as the Real Racing team's first win since the 2018 Okayama season-opener.

Polesitter Nirei Fukuzumi controlled the early stages in the ARTA Honda, but couldn't shake off the advances of Baguette, with the pair quickly gapping the rest of the field.

Never falling much more than a second behind Fukuzumi, Baguette made his move on lap 15 to seize control and over the following laps the Belgian built up a small buffer out front.

Baguette had around six seconds in hand when he pitted on lap 30 to hand over to Tsukakoshi, but a slightly slow stop combined with some impressive laptimes from ex-Formula 2 racer Fukuzumi before making his own stop on lap 35 turned the tables.

Nojiri resumed just ahead of Tsukakoshi and the battle between the two Honda drivers appeared set to rage for the rest of the race until Nojiri simply lost control of the ARTA machine exiting Turn 12 while being shadowed by his rival.

That left Tsukakoshi with a massive 21s lead over the #36 TOM'S Toyota of Yuhi Sekiguchi, which he duly nursed to the finish, ultimately winning by 15s.

Despite carrying 30kg of success ballast, TOM'S pair Sekiguchi and Sacha Fenestraz matched their result from the season opener, with Fenestraz moving up from sixth to third in his stint and Sekiguchi inheriting second after Nojiri's mistake.

Completing the podium was the #14 Cerumo Toyota of Sho Tsuboi and Kazuya Oshima, who also repeated their result from three weeks ago after moving up from eighth on the grid.

Tsuboi secured the place after passing the Impul Nissan GT-R, which ran third in the early stages with Kazuki Hiramine driving but slipped to sixth in the hands of Daiki Sasaki.

Round one winners Nick Cassidy and Ryo Hirakawa followed up on their win with fourth place in the #37 Toyota despite carrying 42kg of ballast, although they surrendered the lead of the championship to TOM'S stablemates Sekiguchi and Fenestraz by one point.

Completing the top five was the Team Kunimitsu Honda of Naoki Yamamoto and Tadasuke Makino, with Yamamoto passing Sasaki on the penultimate lap.

The SARD Toyota of Yuichi Nakayama and GT500 rookie Sena Sakaguchi slipped from third on the grid to an eventual seventh, ahead of the #38 Cerumo Toyota in eighth.

Nissan's two Michelin-shod cars were the final scorers, the NDDP/B-Max Racing machine of Katsumasa Chiyo and Kohei Hirate heading up the works NISMO car of Ronnie Quintarelli and Tsugio Matsuda, who suffered a difficult race from fifth on the grid.

The ARTA Honda finally finished in 14th and three laps down after taking a second pitstop.

UPDATE: The Impul Nissan was handed a 40-second time penalty for Sasaki's late contact with the #11 Gainer Nissan GT300 car, dropping the #12 car to 11th and out of the points.

GT300: Lotus MC car victorious

In the GT300 class, Cars Tokai Dream28 scored its first victory with its Lotus Evora, also taking a first victory for a ‘Mother Chassis’-based car since 2018.

#2 Synthium Apple Lotus

Photo by: Masahide Kamio

Hiroki Katoh ran second for much of the opening stint behind the R&D Sport Subaru BR-Z of Hideki Yamauchi, but left his pitstop four laps later, and when Masataka Yanagida emerged from the pits in the #2 Lotus he had almost four seconds in hand over the Subaru.

Yamauchi's teammate in the #61 Subaru, Takuto Iguchi, managed to close to within 1.5s of the leaders at the finish but had to settle for second.

The ARTA Honda NSX GT3 shared by reigning champion Shinichi Takagi and new teammate Toshiki Oyu completed the podium in third thanks to a late pass by Oyu on the LEON Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Naoya Gamou, who hung on to fourth.

With 60kg of success ballast, the Saitama Toyopet Toyota GR Supra GT300 that won last time out at Fuji took sixth place behind Kondo Racing’s Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3, while the pole-sitting Inging Motorsport Toyota 86 MC faded to ninth.

GT500 race results:

Pos.	No.	Drivers	Team/Car	Laps	Time/Delay
1	17	Koudai Tsukakoshi  Bertrand Baguette	Real Honda	66	-
2	36	Yuhi Sekiguchi  Sacha Fenestraz	TOM'S Toyota	66	15.762s
3	14	Kazuya Oshima  Sho Tsuboi	Cerumo Toyota	66	33.686s
4	37	Nick Cassidy  Ryo Hirakawa	TOM'S Toyota	66	36.679s
5	100	Naoki Yamamoto  Tadasuke Makino	Kunimitsu Honda	66	40.659s
6	39	Yuichi Nakayama  Sena Sakaguchi	SARD Toyota	66	45.449s
7	38	Hiroaki Ishiura  Yuji Tachikawa	Cerumo Toyota	66	47.405s
8	3	Kohei Hirate  Katsumasa Chiyo	NDDP/B-Max Nissan	66	47.637s
9	23	Ronnie Quintarelli  Tsugio Matsuda	NISMO Nissan	66	58.770s
10	16	Hideki Mutoh  Ukyo Sasahara	Mugen Honda	66	1m00.071s
11	12	Daiki Sasaki  Kazuki Hiramine	Impul Nissan	66	1m25.078s
12	24	Jann Mardenborough  Mitsunori Takaboshi	Kondo Nissan	65	1 lap
13	64	Takuya Izawa  Hiroki Otsu	Nakajima Honda	65	1 lap
14	8	Tomoki Nojiri  Nirei Fukuzumi	ARTA Honda	63	3 laps
15	19	Yuji Kunimoto  Ritomo Miyata	Bandoh Toyota	46	20 laps