Sekiguchi and Nakajima give Lexus victory at Fuji

After the end of the Suzuka 1000 km, replaced by the 10 Hours contested as part of the Intercontinental GT Challenge, the highlight of the season Super GT in 2018 clearly remained the Fuji 500 miles.

An ordeal that smiled on Lexus and the LC 500, with a double obtained by the tandems Yuhi Sekiguchi – Kazuki Nakajima (n°36 Team at TOM'S) and Nick Cassidy – Ryo Hirakawa (n°1 – Team KeePer TOM’S).

The first three quarters of the race were however placed under the Nissan seal, with the GT-R Nismo GT500 n°23 – Team Nismo of Ronnie Quintarelli and Tsugio Matsuda, starting from pole, then the n°12 – Team Impul of Jann Mardenborough and Daiki Sasaki, who dominated the event consecutively.

The Mardenborough – Sasaki duo even had a lead of more than 25″ with around forty laps to go over the No. 500 Lexus LC 36 which had returned to second position before the last round of stops, the No. 23 seeming to be further behind. delicacy with the degradation of its gums.

Having entered the pits on lap 143, the leading No. 12 seemed headed for obvious success, before a hose problem, visibly at the intercooler level, ruined Nissan's chances of scoring a second victory in 2018. Pushed into its box, the No. 12 will finally leave but to finish outside the top 5.

25+ seconds lead, cruising, almost home and a pipe comes loose. Brutal. #SuperGT

— Jann Mardenborough (@Jannthaman) August 5

Enough to benefit the Lexus n°36 and n°1 who achieved the double in front of the first Honda NSX-GT n°17 ​​– Real Racing of Koudai Tsukakoshi – Takashi Kogure. Honda completes the top 5 with NSX-GT n°8 – ARTA of Tomoki Nojiri – Takuya Izawa and n°100 – Team Kunimitsu of Naoki Yamamoto – Jenson Button, despite an offbeat strategy with five stops and a penalty for overtaking under yellow flag .

Nissan can only take sixth place with the No. 500 GT-R Nismo GT24 – Kondo Racing of Mitsunori Takaboshi – Joao Paolo de Oliveira.

In GT300, the No. 6 BMW M3 GT55 – ARTA of Sean Walkinshaw and Shinichi Takagi won with a comfortable lead of almost a lap over the Mercedes-AMG GT3 n°0 – Goodsmile Racing by Nobuteru Taniguchi – Tatsuya Kataoka and the Toyota Prius after GT n°31 – after Racing by Koki Saga – Kohei Hirate.

Jules Gounon, associated with Yuji Ide and Ryohei Sakaguchi in the No. 3 Bentley Continental GT117 – Elcars finished the event in 13th place in the category.

SUPER GT Rd.5 富士GT 500mile Race決勝暫定結果です！！！！ #SUPERGT #富士500mile pic.twitter.com/IHZpI50R2M

— POTENZA_SUPERGT (@POTENZA_SUPERGT) August 5

Discover the report of the Fuji 500 miles Super GT event, in issue 2177 of AUTOhebdo, available tomorrow evening in digital version, and from this Wednesday on newsstands.