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Nissan Z Finishes 5th at SUPER GT Rd. 4
2005 SUPER GT Round4 SUGO GT 300km RACE
Sportsland SUGO International Circuit (Miyagi) - July 24, 2005 |
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| Copyright © NISMO |
The fourth round of Super GT was held at Sportsland SUGO (Miyagi, Japan; 3.704km/ lap) on July 24. 50,300 spectators gathered to the event, and the race was held in two parts as one of the GT300 cars went into flames on lap 11, causing red-flag case. Calsonic Impul Z (#12, Benoit Treluyer / Yuji Ide) started the initial race from pole, but on the second start it ran off track and lost position to 16th. The car fought back to recover position to 5th when it crossed the finish line. Motul Pitwork Z (#22, Michael Krumm / Masataka Yanagida) started from 3rd place and finished 7th, Xanavi Nismo Z (#1, Satoshi Motoyama / Richard Lyons) started 13th to finish 8th. G'ZOX HASEMI Z (#3, Toshihiro Kaneishi / Erik Comas) started 5th and at one time successfully jumped up to 3rd place. However, with engine failing from the middle of the race, after several pit works to adjust, the team eventually decided to pull the car all the way in the garage to withdraw from race.
The green lights lit on to signal start the race on 2:08 pm. #12 Z on Ide at the lead, the top group made a clean start and Ide led the pack until the race being interrupted on lap11. Yanagida on #22 Z backed off to 3rd after few laps and picked up some tire debris on lap 6 after being overtaken by #100 NSX. The car then lost the handling control. The car lost position to 9th by lap 10. Kaneishi was the starting driver for #3Z and after losing one position on the first lap, recovered to 5th by lap9 overtaking #22 Z. Motoyama gained 2 positions on the first lap on #1 Z, and was 10th by lap 11. An accident suddenly took place on that lap, and the race was interrupted by a red flag. #87 Lamborghini was climbing uphill from the final corner had spun out to hit the guardrail hard. The car instantly went on flames. The fire was set off quickly by the marshals and the driver had walked off safely from the site. However, all the cars were to remain on the track until the temporary repair was made on the damaged guardrails.
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| Copyright © NISMO |
The race restarted with remaining 68 laps as the second part. #12 Z restarted the race again from pole and at the first corner, car was caught between #32 NSX and #100 NSX on both sides. And with another hitting from behind, Ide made a half-spin towards the inside of the 1st corner. The car dropped position to 16th after returning almost immediately. Ide fought hard to recover positions, and when he passed it over to Treluyer on lap 26, the car was in 8th place. Treluyer continued the pursuit and on lap56, the car was in 4th. But now, the tires were wearing out and could not keep the position when #6 Supra came up on lap63. The car finished the race in 5th place. Motoyama on #1 Z promoted to 6th but with 90kg handicap weight a burden, it backed off to 8th place. Lyons took over from lap 26 when the car was in 7th, and he struggled with the heavy weight of the car and came to 6th on lap 52 but could not hold it to the end. The car received the checkered flag in 8th place. Yanagida was at restart in 9th place and he kept the position throughout his stint and returned to pit in lap 23. Michael Krumm took over the wheels with the new tires and right balance, and he kept high pace in pursuit for the cars ahead. Krumm finished the race in 7th place.
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| Copyright © NISMO |
"We are considering today's race as 70% success for us," analysed Hiroshi Degawa, NISMO Team Director. "Our aim was set to collecting as many points as possible. #1 fought well considering its weight and winning 3 points was good enough. For #22, I think we could have brought up the pace in the first half. Yanagida picked up some tire debris and lost balance. Maybe we could have made better set up for him. Michael (Krumm ) worked so hard in the second half but we had no time to improve further than that (7th place). The most disappointing thing was #12 who had to back off at the restart. The series will be more competitive and fierce now, but everybody else have to fight the consequences of the handicap weight. What is most important is to be consistent and win much series points as possible."
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