 |
| erspotter |
Otojatim- Final Round of SUPER GT series took place in the afternoon of December 8th
(Sun.) at Suzuka circuit (1 lap 5,807m X 51 laps) in Mie Prefecture. In this final round of the series held under fair skies, the No. 36 au TOM'S GR Supra that clinched its second straight GT500 class title in yesterday's qualifying also took race win from pole position. After being postponed due to the effects of Typhoon #10 at the end of August, Round 5 at Suzuka was held as the final race of the 2024 season on December 8th. Despite difficult conditions due to the low air temperature at 12 degrees C. and despite two accidents in the race that resulted in Full Course Yellow (FCY) declarations, there were no other complications and the 51 designated laps of both the GT500 and GT300 races were completed with hot competition continuing to the very end.
The GT500 class race started with the No. 36 au TOM'S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi/Kenta Yamashita), which had won pole position the day before along with the clinching the 2024 season's Drivers title, going out to strongly in the lead. Despite being challenged by its rivals in the final stages, No. 36 battled on diligently to keep its lead. In this way, it took its second consecutive win following the one at the previous Round 8 and its 3rd of the season. Starting from 2nd position on the grid, the No. 17 Astemo CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Kakunoshin Ohta) held its place in 2nd during the early stages of the race, but on the 10th lap it collided with a GT300 class car. This caused it to drop to 5th position. However, some fast pit work brought it back effectively into 3rd position. Then it would move up into 2nd position, thanks in part to a spin-out by another car. From there it went on to close in on the leading car No. 36 but would be unable to pass it and finished the race in 2nd
place. Meanwhile, the No. 12 MARELLI IMPUL Z (Kazuki Hiramine/Bertrand Baguette) that had started the race from 15th position on the grid continued to move up through the pack to take 3rd position by the 41st lap and go on to a podium finish in 3rd place. In this way, the final race of the 2024 season would end with a victory for the TOYOTA GR Supra GT500 and a Honda CIVIC TYPE
R-GT and a Nissan Z NISMO GT500 taking 2nd and 3rd places respectively, thus putting all three makers on the winners podium.
In the GT300 class, Yuya Motojima in the No. 88 VENTENY Lamborghini GT3 started out from pole position to steadily build his lead, but he would eventually lose the lead to two cars, including the No. 2 muta Racing GR86 GT (Yuui Tsutsumi/Hibiki Taira) that chose to save time in the required pit stop by opting for a no-tire-change strategy. However, Takashi Kogure, now at the wheel of car No. 88 in the second stint, charged forward magnificently to soon retake the lead. From there he went on to take the team's 4th win of the season. The No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG (Naoya Gamou/Takuro Shinohara/Haruki Kurosawa) that had led the series standing before this race would finish in 4th place, which meant that the winning car No. 88 also came from behind to take the lead in series points as well, thus giving the Kogure/Motojima pair their first title, and the team's first crown in 31 years, going back to the JLOC era.