TEAM WEIDER SCORES FIRST SUPERGT VICTORY WITH NEW HONDA HSV
2010-04-06 17:30:18 Author: admin Source:
Last weekend's Super GT Championship's Round 2 at the Okayama International Circuit, Team Weider in a brand new Honda race machine, the HSV-010, took a convincing victory for Honda.
The duo of Takashi Kogure and Loic Duval drove faultlessly to secure Honda HSV's first victory on its debut season in Super GT. While, in the GT300 class, #46 Up Start MOLA Z driven by Naoki Yokomizo and Tsubasa Abe captured the win following a decisive battle with the M7 MUTIARA MOTORS AMEMIYA SGC 7.
As the cars sped away at the start, Duval powered the #18 HSV to lead all runners into the first corner. He then pulled away from the pack rather easily with over a second to the second place runner, # 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430 of Yuji Tachikawa, by lap 2.
A few laps into the race, #18 began lapping GT300 cars which allowed #38 to close in slightly, but not enough to get within striking distance. As the pitstop window opened, #18 was the first of front runners to make a stop with the driver baton being passed on to Kogure. #18's second driver rejoined the track in a comfortable lead.
With #18 romping to an apparent victory at the midway of the race, the excitement shifted to the fight for second position between # 38 and last season's Super GT champions #1 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430. #1 Petronas TOM's was able to jump #38 for second place due to an effective stop. Driver Andre Lotterer (Petronas TOM's) had worked his way up from 8th position on the grid to 4th place. By limiting the tyre change to rears only, the team was able to gain another 30 seconds in its pit stop.
So as the teams completed the mandatory stops, #18 held the lead, followed by #1 and #38. But, in the final stint of the race, Petronas TOM's Juichi Wakisaka got caught behind a backmarker and lost the second position he held to Richard Lyons in car # 38. From there, Lyons held on until the flag, while #18's Kogure maintained the lead by lapping the HSV around the Okayama track in lap times of 1:27. His gap to second position #38's Lyons had ballooned to over 10 seconds with only a few laps left to run.
Kogure virtually cruised to victory and there wasn't a doubt on the performance of the HSV. Towards the end of the race, everyone's pace slowed considerably as #18 crossed the line to take victory with an 11-sec cushion over #38 in second place and #1 in third.
The Weider team, therefore, made it up from last round's bizarre accident with a start to finish win with Kogure notching up his first win since round 5 of the 2008 season at SUGO and Duval also collecting another win since round 9 of the 2007 season at Fuji .
Having just missed a podium finish, # 12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R became the top GT-R finisher, in 4th. #23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R Satoshi Motoyama/Benoit Treluyer had to retire from the race after a collision with another car on lap 16. Unable to keep a fast pace, previous round winners # 24 HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R of Joao Paulo Lima de Oliveira and Hironobu Yasuda could finish no better than 12th.
Results
1 Weider HSV-010 Takashi Kogure/Loic Duval 2:02'26.
2 ZENT CERUMO SC430 Yuji Tachikawa/Richard Lyons +0'11.800
3 PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 Juichi Wakisaka/Andre Lotterer 0'14.209
4 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R Tsugio Matsuda/Ronnie Quintarelli 0'14.712
5 ENEOS SC430 Daisuke Ito/Bjorn Wirdheim 0'45.741
6 ARTA HSV-010 Ralph Firman/Yuji Ide 0'48.666
7 KEIHIN HSV-010 Toshihiro Kaneishi/Koudai Tsukakoshi 0'57.285
8 RAYBRIG HSV-010 Takuya Izawa/Naoki Yamamoto 1'11.673
9 MJ KRAFT SC430 Hiroaki Ishiura/Kazuya Oshima 1Lap
10 DENSO DUNLOP SARD SC430 Andre Couto/Kohei Hirate 1Lap
