Team SARD plays with the rain at Autopolis

The choice of tires was decisive in deciding the victory on the Autopolis track this morning in Japan, as part of the Super GT championship. And in this little game, Heikki Kovalainen and Yuichi Nakayama (Lexus LC500 n°39 – Team SARD) were the smartest and most successful in their strategy.

After the domination of the Honda NSX-GT n°17 ​​– Real Racing of polemen Bertrand Baguette – Koudai Tsukakoshi in the first part of the race, which saw the rapid elimination of the Honda NSX-GT n°1 – Team Kunimitsu of the champions outgoing, Jenson Button – Naoki Yamamoto, the rain invites itself irregularly to the party, offering different strategies in the peloton.

If the leading Honda put on slick tires during its first stop, Kovalainen and Nakayama waited a few laps to return to the pitlane and fit wet tires at the time of a second neutralization of the race under safety car regime.

A profitable choice, since a few laps later, Real Racing decided to recall the #17 Honda to also switch to rain tires. Team SARD immediately climbs to the forefront and will not relinquish control of the race until the finish despite the return of Bertrand Baguette in the last laps, the Belgian failing less than 4″.

The podium is completed by the No. 500 Lexus LC37 – Team Tom's of Ryo Hirakawa and Nick Cassidy, author of a superb end of the race to overtake the No. 38 Lexus – Team ZENT Cerumo, the No. 8 Honda NSX-GT – ARTA and the No. 6 Lexus – Team LeMans in the final seconds and secure the podium.

The championship leaders before this meeting Kazuya Oshima and Kenta Yamashita (Lexus n°6 – Team LeMans) finished sixth at the checkered flag and retained the lead in the general classification. Frédéric Makowiecki and Kohei Hirate (Nissan GT-R GT500 n°3 – NDDP Racing with B-Max) finished the event in 11th place.

In GT300, McLaren thought they would win with the #720 3S GT720 of Alex Palou – Seiji Ara, who came to take the best for the finish on the #3 Lamborghini Huracan GT88 – JLOC of Takashi Kogure – Yuya Motojima, but it was was without counting on the return of the No. 3 Lexus RC F GT60 of Hiroki Yoshimoto and Ritomo Miyata who won at the wire.

Discover the full report of the Autopolis Super GT event, in issue 2233 of AUTOhebdo, available tomorrow evening in digital version and this Wednesday on newsstands.