+ Result: Pre-Qualifying
Katsumasa Chiyo put the No. 500 Team 5ZIGEN Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 on top in Pre-Qualifying, in what marked the first day-time dry running of the weekend ahead of tomorrow’s Suzuka 1000km.
The Nissan factory driver was the only driver to dip below the two-minute barrier, having reeled off a 1:59.908 lap time to edge out the No. 555 Maezawa Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo for Alessio Rovera by 0.202 seconds.
Rovera was one of a number of cars to make improvements in the the closing moments of the 90-minute session.
Seita Nonaka put the No. 45 PONOS Racing Ferrari third on the time charts, ahead of Alessandro Ghiretti’s No. 7 Absolute Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo in fourth, while Dennis Olsen made a late-session surge to fifth quickest in the debuting No. 64 Miedecke Motorsport By Team MPC Ford Mustang GT3 EVO.
The No. 9 Bingo Racing Porsche of Reimei Ito was sixth, the second quickest Bronze Cup entry to the class-leading Maezawa entry, with the Ryo Ogawa’s LM Corsa Ferrari seventh.
Tsugio Matsuda made it two Nissans in the top-eight in the No. 81 Team Daishin entry, which bumped the best of the Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo entries, the No. 77 Craft-Bamboo Racing example of Luca Stolz, ahead of Friday evening’s pace-setting 75 Express Mercedes-AMG of Philip Ellis, which completed the overall top-ten.
AO by Absolute Racing’s popular ‘Bushi-Rex’ liveried-Porsche was 11th with a time set by Alessio Picariello, ahead of High Class Racing’s Bronze Cup Porsche in 12th with Joel Sturm at the wheel.
The session saw a red flag early in the session for a heavy accident by the No. 360 Runup Sports Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 of Atsushi Tanaka, who crashed at 130R.
Tanaka was uninjured in the shunt in the lone Am class entrant although the car’s health is unclear.
Nicky Catsburg, meanwhile, had a wild off-course excursion through the gravel, although saved the No. 2 JMR Johor Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R from any damage.
Qualifying gets underway at 5:40 p.m. local time with live coverage on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel.
Words: sportscar365.com