Written by Jamie Klein at Sports Car 365
Zak O’Sullivan and team-mate Kiyoshi Umegaki land another podium with CarGuy at Suzuka.
In the GT300 class at Suzuka, Pacific Racing’s BMW proved unstoppable as
Tomibayashi and Fujiwara took the team’s maiden wins.
The works Subaru of Takuto Iguchi was the first of the frontrunners to hit trouble, and
was already losing ground when Iguchi was rear-ended by the PONOS Racing Ferrari
of Shintaro Kawabata, leaving him stranded in the gravel.
The pit stop phase began on lap 16, with Fujiwara leaving it until lap 24 to hand over to
Tomibayashi, who was untroubled out front and was in possession of a near-20
second lead when the safety car came out.
Until the closing stages, Shunsuke Kohno’s LM Corsa Lexus LC500 looked on course
for second having run third early on, overcutting past the D’station Aston Martin
Vantage GT3 Evo that Tomonobu Fujii brought in to hand over to Charlie Fagg on lap
16.
Khono was coming under pressure from Zak O’Sullivan, who was up to third in the
CarGuy MKS Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo. Khono conceded second at the chicane
before pitting to replace what appeared to be a slow puncture.
That left O’Sullivan clear to finish second and promoted the Team UpGarage
Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Takashi Kobayashi and Kotaro Shimbara to the final
podium place, followed by Fujii and Fagg’s Aston Martin.
It promotes de Oliveira and Kimura back into the lead of the championship by a single
point from Fujii and Fagg, with O’Sullivan five points back in a solo third place — as his
Toyota junior team-mate Umegaki didn’t contest the opening round at Okayama.