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 RAYBRIG
NSX claims second consecutive Motegi Victory
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• GT 500 Class
On the opening lap the pole starter, the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX driven by Sebastien Philippe,
took the lead and was followed through the first lap by the top five machines in their grid
order. Behind them, the 6th position starter No. 1 ZENT CEERUMO SC (Toranosuke Takagi) and
the 7th position starter No. 8 ARTA NSX (Ralph Firman) came back in the opposite order. On
lap six, however, No. 8 ran off the track at the S curve. Although it quickly returned to
the race, it had lost 6th place to No. 1. Meanwhile, the 5th position runner, No. 18 TAKATA
DOME NSX (Ryo Michigami) passed the No.35 BANDAI DIREZZA SC430 (Peter Dumbreck) on the
90-Degree Corner of lap seven to move into 4th position.
Iida running second in the No. 6 car failed to pick up the pace and close the gap, and
on lap 14 he was finally passed by Andre Lotterer in the No. 36 OPEN INTERFECE TOM'S SC430.
At this point there was a 10-second gap between the leader No. 100 and 2nd place runner
No. 36. On lap 21, No. 100ran part way off the track on the hairpin turn but still managed
to recover with a 4-sec. lead.
After the 21st lap the teams began to make their routine pit stops. Many of the cars were
taking their pit stops earlier than usual, perhaps because of the unexpectedly high track
temperature.
The leading car, No. 100, and the second-place car, No. 36, made their pit stops at the
same time on the 30th lap. The race to finish the pit work was nearly even, with both cars
leaving the pit at roughly the same time. With the position of the two leading machines
unchanged, Shinya Hosokawa was now at the wheel of No. 100 while Juichi Wakisaka drove
the No. 36 machine. By the time all the machines had finished their routine pit stops on
lap 33, No. 100 had a 4-second lead over No. 36 in 2nd position. Following in 3rd position
was No. 6, with No. 18 in 4th, No. 35 in 5th and No. 1 in 6th position. Before long, No. 1
passed No. 35 to move into 5th position.
Entering the final stages of the race, Wakisaka in the No. 36 machine was unable to make his
typical catch-up pursuit as Hosokawa held his pace and gradually opened an even larger gap.
By the 40th lap that gap had grown to six seconds and by lap 50 it was 10 seconds.
The battle for 3rd and below began to heat up with ten laps remaining in the race. First
of all, in 3rd position the No. 6 machine driven by Kataoka began to fall off the pace rapidly
to the point where his lap times were a full three seconds slower than his competitors. Soon
after this, Kogure in the No. 18 machine caught up with him, but because the No. 6 machine was
faster on the straights, he was having a hard time getting past. During this interval, Tachikawa
in the No. 1 machine also caught up and was able to slip past No. 18 coming out of the hairpin
on lap 57. At that moment Kataoka in No. 6 also gave Tachikawa room to pass, which moved No.
1 up to 3rd position in one move. After that, No .6 picked up its pace enough to stay ahead
of No. 18.
With 63 laps finished, the leaders entered the checkered lap. Hosokawa in the No. 100 RAYBRIG
NSX ran without mishap to take the checkered and the win with a 17-second lead over 2nd place.
This was the first victory of the season for No. 100. It was also the team's second consecutive
win at the Motegi round. This give the NSX teams their 6th straight victory at their home
course, Motegi. For Hosokawa, this was his first GT500 victory ever. Second place went to No.
36 OPEN INTERFACE TOM'S SC430 and 3rd place to No. 1 ZENT CERUMO SC. In 6th place came the No.
24 WOODONE ADVAN KONDO Z6 (Masataka Yanagida, Seiji Ara), which had passed the No. 32 EPSON
NSX in the closing laps to be the first finisher among the Fairlady Z teams.
This result put Philippe and Hosokawa on top of the drivers ranking in a tie with the No. 36
team drivers Juichi Wakisaka and Andre Lotterer. Three points behind in a tie for 3rd lie the
No. 1 team drivers Tachikawa and Takagi and the No. 22 team driver Michael Krumm, who finished
10th in this race. As for the No. 8 team drivers Ito and Firman, they scored no points this
time because they were unable to finish the race due to wheel nut coming off. This dropped
then to 5th place in the ranking.
• GT 300 Class
In the GT300 class, the pole starter Haruki Kurosawa in the No.62 WILLCOM ADVAN VEMAC
408R was passed by Tetsuya Tanaka in the No. 11 JIM CENTER FERRARI DUNLOP machine on
lap 13. After that No. 62's paced slowed and on lap 19 Kurosawa was passed by Hideshi
Matsuda in the No.110 TOTALBENEFIT GREENTEC BOXSTER. Two laps later the No. 62 made
a pit stop and changed drivers to Shinsuke Shibahara.
The leader, No. 11, made its pit stop on lap 30 and 2nd-place runner, No. 110, made
its pit stop on lap 33, with these teams changing drivers to Takayuki Aoki and Ichijo
Suga respectively. Thanks to faster pit work, No. 110 was able to return to the track
in front of No. 11 but lost that lead with a costly mistake at the hairpin on lap 35
that sent it off the track. This caused No. 110 to lose considerable ground and drop
back in the pack. Meanwhile, No. 11 was passed momentarily by No. 13 ENDLESS ADVAN
CCI Z (Masami Kageyama >Tomonobu Fujii), which had been working up steadily from its
15th position grid start, but on lap 33 No. 11 was able to pass No. 13 back to regain
the lead by the time all the machines had finished their pit stops.
At this point the order of the top three machines was No. 11 in the lead followed by
No. 13 and No.62. After this, all three machines held their positions all the way to
the checkered.
Source: Super GT
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