Cassidy – Hirakawa takes a Toyota quintuple to Fuji, Fenestraz second

La Toyota GR Supra GT500 did not miss his debut in Super GT this Sunday with a quintuple of the new car from the Japanese brand on the inaugural round of the championship at Fuji. Vice-champions in 2019, Nick Cassidy and Ryo Hirakawa (Team KeePer Tom's) ideally start the campaign with a victory.

Starting from pole, Nick Cassidy retained the advantage at the start against the No. 8 Honda NSX-GT – ARTA shared between Nirei Fukuzumi and Tomoki Nojiri, while Sacha Fenestraz (Toyota GR Supra n°36 – Team at Tom's) lost a place to the #100 Honda NSX-GT – Team Kunimitsu of Tadasuke Makino – Naoki Yamamoto.

But the race was quickly neutralized under safety car regime after a collision in the peloton between the No. 500 Nissan GT-R GT12 – Team Impul of Daiki Sasaki and the No. 64 Honda NSX-GT – Nakajima Racing of Takuya Izawa. If the Nissan cannot restart, the Honda manages to enter the pit lane but plunges into its box.

In the lead, Nick Cassidy is not worried while the fight for second place sees a magnificent fight between Sacha Fenestraz and Naoki Yamamoto. The Franco-Argentinian finally took the advantage before halfway through the race and before the first visits to the leaders' pits.

Following these stops, Ryo Hirakawa still led the race with the #37 Toyota GR Supra ahead of Yuhi Sekiguchi (#36 Toyota Supra) before the safety car was deployed on the 38th lap after a collision between the Nissan GT-R GT500 n°23 – Team Motul and the Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 n°360 – Tomei Sports.

At the restart, Hirakawa maintains the advantage over Sekiguchi, but the fight intensifies for third place between the Honda n°100 of Makino, and the two Toyota GR Supra n°14 – Wako's of Sho Tsuboi and n°38 – Zent Cerumo by Hiroaki Ishiura.

Tsuboi moved up to third position behind Hirakawa and Sekiguchi and clearly threatened the latter for second place in the final laps, without however being able to take second place.

But the day was royal for the new Toyota GR Supra GT500 with a quintuple led by Cassidy – Hirakawa (Team KeePer Tom's) ahead of Fenestraz – Sekiguchi (Team au Tom's), Tsuboi – Oshima (Team Wako's), Ishiura – Tachikawa (Team Zent Cerumo ) and Nakayama – Yamashita (Team SARD).

The first Honda NSX-GT, the n°100 – Team Kunimitsu from Yamamoto – Makino takes 6th place, when the best Nissan GT-R Nismo GT500, the n°3 – NDDP Racing with B-Max from Chiyo – Hirate takes the 7th place.

In GT300, Toyota also won with the GR Supra GT300 n°52 – SaitamaToyopet of Kawaai – Yoshida, winners ahead of the Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 n°11 – Gainer of Hiranaka – Yasuda and the Toyota 86 MC n°5 – Team Machsyaken from Hiraki – Sakaguchi.

Discover the full report of the opening of the Super GT at Fuji, in issue 2270 of AUTOhebdo, available tomorrow evening in digital version and this Wednesday on newsstands.