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Round 7 of the Super GT Series was held on Sunday, September 10 at Twin Ring Motegi in front of 50,000 spectators.A total of 5 Nissan Z cars were entered in the GT500 class, all saddled with large amounts of handicap weight after success in the previous races.The #24 WOODONE ADVAN KONDO Z (Masataka Yanagida /Seiji Ara) was the most successful of the NISSAN cars, starting 9th and finishing in 6th place. The #22 MOTUL AUTECH Z of Michael Krumm and Richard Lyons, the top-ranked driver pairing in the championship after the previous round, had 120 kilograms of success ballast on their car, including a 25kg special performance adjustment.In spite of such a heavy burden, the car finished the race in 10th place, scoring one valuable point for the championship. Cloudy weather, with temperatures of 31C and the track surface measured at 45C greeted the drivers before the start of the race.

Erik Comas had been the one responsible for the development of the #24 Z machine, and had also contributed to the development of the Yokohama tires. However, he had to go home to France to have surgery on his injured back.Therefore, the team announced Seiji Ara as the new partner for regular driver Masataka Yanagida.Yanagida was promoted to taking responsibility for the car setup and for setting the qualifying time.After so many changes at KONDO RACING, Yanagida started the race from 9th on the grid.He kept a steady pace at the start, returning to the pits on lap 28 to hand over to Ara. Ara maintained the steady pace, avoiding any on-track dangers.While the other cars were involved in accidents and were forced to back off, the #24 car improved to 8th on lap 35, and then to 7th on lap 46.At the end of the race,

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it had caught up with the #35 SC430, and on lap 62, overtook the car to finish the race in 6th place.Masahiko Kondo, team manager of KONDO RACING said with a smile, "We pulled out everything the team has at the moment. It was a rewarding result as we were able to catch the SC430 in the end, when it was already hard on the tires."

Driving the #22 MOTUL AUTECH Z, Michael Krumm started the race from 13th on the grid.Suffering from the heavy handicap weight on the car, he drove his stint very carefully, passing over to Richard Lyons on lap 25. Lyons returned to the track in 13th place, remaining in that position until he was hit by the #12 Z on lap 29, causing him to run into the gravel bed.After losing 10 seconds, he managed to return to the track undamaged, though was not able to subsequently pick up the pace, and nearly finished the race out of the points, in 11th.On lap 61 however, he eventually overtook the #3 Z, attaining 10th place.Lyons then took the checkered flag, winning a very valuable single championship point for his effort.

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The #23 XANAVI NISMO Z, with Satoshi Motoyama and Tsugio Matsuda, started the race from 11th on the grid, Matsuda taking the start. Constantly seeking an opportunity to improve his position, he collided with a GT300 car on lap 24.There was some damage to the front fender, but the team figured it had no detrimental effect and continued to race.However, the car was given a black flag with the orange disk, meaning it had to immediately return to the pits for repairs. The car came into its pit on lap 26, pulled into the garage and made the necessary repairs. Because of this, the car lost 3 laps, and although Motoyama returned to the track, undertaking a fierce pursuit, it was not possible to recover positions.The car finished the race in 14th place.

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The #12 CALSONIC IMPUL Z of Benoit Treluyer and Kazuki Hoshino started the race from 15th on the grid and finished 13th; while the #3 Yellow Hat YMS Tomica Z of Naoki Yokomizo and Joao Paulo De Oliveira started 10th and finished 11th.

"It was a very tough race for us," recalled Yoshitaka Iijima, NISMO Team Director."To be honest, the temperature was much higher than we expected, and it was abusive to the tires.Also the heavy weight really left us with nothing to do.In the next round, at Autopolis, we will be able to take off a lot of that weight; so we'll be working hard to win that race."

Tsugio Matsuda, driver of t he #23 Z said, "When I was in a battle with another car, I saw a GT300 car leaving the pits. I thought I could avoid it, but it made an unexpected move and we made contact. However, it was an accident I should have avoided, and I promise to never let this happen again."