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Qualifying report

Autopolis Super GT: Yamamoto takes Honda's second pole of the season

The #100 Team Kunimitsu crew of Naoki Yamamoto and Takuya Izawa secured pole position for the Autopolis round of Super GT in a Honda NSX-GT.

#100 Team Kunimitsu Honda NSX Concept GT: Naoki Yamamoto, Takuya Izawa

#100 Team Kunimitsu Honda NSX Concept GT: Naoki Yamamoto, Takuya Izawa

Shigenobu Yoshida

2013 Super Formula champion Yamamoto and Izawa appeared as a formidable team already on Saturday morning, leading a Honda 1-2 in free practice.

The Japanese duo then carried their pace into qualifying with Izawa topping Q1, and Yamamoto improving the former’s benchmark to secure the top spot on the grid for the race.

While Nissan has struggled to keep up with both Honda and Lexus so far this season, the #46 Mola duo of Satoshi Motoyama and Katsumasa Chiyo put their GT-R to the front row.

However, Motoyama’s fastest lap was nearly six tenths off the pace of Yamamoto’s flyer of 1m33.740s.

Defending champions Heikki Kovalainen and Kohei Hirate put a third different brand into the top three, with their Lexus LC500 taking third.

The #1 Team SARD entry was followed by #38 Zent Cerumo's Hiroaki Ishiura and Yuji Tachikawa and the #16 Mugen crew of Daisuke Nakajima and Hideki Mutoh.

Championship leaders Ryo Hirakawa and Nick Cassidy had to settle for sixth in the #37 TOM’S, the Japanese-New Zealander pair ending up over two seconds slower than the pace-setter Honda.

Team LeMans Wako’s Kazuya Oshima and Andrea Caldarelli were another half a second behind in seventh, while a mistake from Kazuki Nakajima left his #36 TOM’S car, along with his teammate James Rossiter, down in eighth on the grid.

GT300: Toyota takes class pole 

Defending champion Takamitsu Matsui claimed the fifth pole position of the VivaC Toyota team in the GT300 class, ending a two-pole streak of Mercedes.

R&D Sport’s Takuto Iguchi was over six tenths down in the Subaru BRZ, while Team Mach driver Kiyoto Fujinami made it two Toyotas in the top three.

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