TEAM WEIDER SCORE SECOND CONSECUTIVE POLE IN SUPER GT ROUND 2
2010-04-04 13:26:07 Author: admin Source:
The 2010 Super GT Championship Round 2 takes us to the Okayama Circuit this weekend. Super GT's qualifying rounds use the “Super Lap" format of time trials run with one machine at a time. This round, the format adopts a “knock out" format run in three sessions of timed laps, similar to F1. The cars with the slowest lap times in the first two sessions are “knocked out" of the competition and only the cars remaining for the last session run the individual time runs to determine the top grid positions for the race.
The previous race in Suzuka saw the GT-Rs top the results sheet with Kondo Racing's J.P.Lima de Oliveira and Hironobu Yasuda taking victory at the magnificent circuit. This time around at the qualifying session at the Okayama International Circuit, the Weider HSV-010 driven by Takashi Kogure and Loic Duval, who crashed out at the Suzuka race, stormed to the pole position in the GT500 class. The duo powered the new HSV 010 Super GT machine (Honda's NSX replacement) around the track in the fastest time of 1'25.432 in Q1 and 1'23.815 in Q2, beating leading contenders such as; Zent Cerumo, Epson HSV, Motul Autech and Petronas TOM, to the top of the time sheets.
Team Weider also garnered pole at the season-opener, thus the team have their second consecutive pole for the season.
Folllowing qualifying, drivers Kogure and Duval shared their thoughts on the session, Kogure commented, “I am sincerely happy to have won this pole position. But, since we had the nightmare (crash) in the last round (the season opener at Suzuka), I know I won't be able to relax until the race is over. In the final session it was hard to get the tires warmed up, so I had to run two consecutive time attacks."
Duval added, “I am quite satisfied with the car's performance. Last race we had that crash, but besides that, the team and Honda and we drivers have all been doing a good job. As soon as I started driving, I knew that things were going well."
The HSV - 010 GT, Honda's new machine replacing the legendary NSX, certainly has proven its speed and performance without a doubt, as many as three HSVs made the top ten in Okayama's qualifying session; Team Weider, Team Epson and Team Raybrig.
At the last round, Team Weider suffered a horrific crash that wrecked the car, but in the current round the team have recovered in the best possible situation. Their goal for the race is to grab that first win which eluded them at the last race.
In the GT300 class, the top team to emerge from the Knock-out qualifying and take the class pole was the JLOC Lamborghini RG-3 driven by Koji Yamanishi and Yuhi Sekiguchi.
Results
1 Weider HSV-010 Takashi Kogure/Loic Duval 1'25.432 (Q1) 1'23.815 (Q2)
2 ZENT CERUMO SC430 Yuji Tachikawa/Richard Lyons 1'25.680 1'24.055
3 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R Tsugio Matsuda/Ronnie Quintarelli 1'26.518 1'24.273
4 MJ KRAFT SC430 Hiroaki Ishiura/Kazuya Oshima 1'25.477 1'24.349
5 ENEOS SC430 Daisuke Ito/Bjorn Wirdheim 1'26.172 1'24.395
6 EPSON HSV-010 Ryo Michigami/Yuhki Nakayama 1'27.472 1'24.399
7 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R Satoshi Motoyama/Benoit Treluyer 1'27.077 1'24.888
8 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 Juichi Wakisaka/Andre Lotterer 1'25.993 1'24.420
9 DENSO DUNLOP SARD SC430 Andre Couto/Kohei Hirate 1'28.044 1'24.671
10 RAYBRIG HSV-010 Takuya Izawa/Naoki Yamamoto 1'27.081 1'24.825
