Winning Nissan penalised after mass protest, Bandoh Toyota wins

Katsumasa Chiyo and Mitsunori Takaboshi were initially declared the winners of the 450km race after it was cut short for a huge crash involving the sister NISMO car of Tsugio Matsuda and the JLOC Lamborghini Huracan of Kosuke Matsuura.

That was by virtue of the fact the NDDP crew had not completed its second mandatory refuelling stop when the crash occurred on lap 59 of 77.

With the race not resuming after the red flags were shown, Chiyo and Takaboshi were listed as winning by 31 seconds ahead of the Bandoh Toyota GR Supra of Yuji Kunimoto and Sena Sakaguchi in the provisional results.

However, a protest was lodged against the winning car by almost all the other GT500 teams, with only ARTA and Kondo Racing not doing so.

The NDDP Nissan was consequently handed a 60-second penalty to compensate for not completing its second stop, dropping the pair to fourth in the final standings and handing victory to the Bandoh Toyota.

Following last year's crash-shortened Fuji race, SUPER GT officials had suggested that in the event of a red flag any car that had not completed both of its mandatory refuelling stops would be penalised.

As a result of the penalty, the Bandoh team, Kunimoto and tyre supplier Yokohama take a long-awaited first victory since 2016, while Sakaguchi gets his first GT500 win.

The #36 TOM'S Toyota of Sho Tsuboi and Ritomo Miyata was promoted to second ahead of the Team Impul Nissan of Bertrand Baguette and Kazuki Hiramine.

The Team Kunimitsu Honda of Yamamoto and Makino remained fifth after the penalty was applied, missing out on fourth by a little over a second.

With second place, Tsuboi and Miyata move into the lead of the championship on 36 points, seven ahead of Chiyo and Takaboshi.

UPDATE: It was announced after the revised results were issued that NDDP Racing has expressed an intention to appeal its penalty, meaning the results will remain provisional until the appeal can be heard.

Suzuka 450km - GT500 race results (revised):

Po	No	Car	Driver	Team	Time/Gap	Tyre
1	19	Toyota	Yuji Kunimoto  Sena Sakaguchi	Racing Project Bandoh	58 laps	Y
2	36	Toyota	Sho Tsuboi  Ritomo Miyata	TOM'S	2.094	B
3	1	Nissan	Kazuki Hiramine  Bertrand Baguette	Impul	25.303	B
4	3	Nissan	Katsumasa Chiyo  Mitsunori Takaboshi	NDDP Racing	28.218	M
5	100	Honda	Naoki Yamamoto  Tadasuke Makino	Kunimitsu	29.555	B
6	14	Toyota	Kazuya Oshima  Kenta Yamashita	Rookie Racing	41.713	B
7	16	Honda	Nirei Fukuzumi  Hiroki Otsu	ARTA	49.071	B
8	24	Nissan	Daiki Sasaki  Kohei Hirate	Kondo Racing	1'20.858	Y
9	17	Honda	Koudai Tsukakoshi  Nobuharu Matsushita	Real Racing	1'28.614	B
10	38	Toyota	Yuji Tachikawa  Hiroaki Ishiura	Cerumo	1'33.012	B
11	37	Toyota	Ukyo Sasahara  Giuliano Alesi	TOM'S	1'35.161	B
12	8	Honda	Tomoki Nojiri  Toshiki Oyu	ARTA	1'42.345	B
13	23	Nissan	Tsugio Matsuda  Ronnie Quintarelli	NISMO	1 lap	M
14	64	Honda	Takuya Izawa  Kakunoshin Ota	Nakajima Racing	1 lap	D
15	39	Toyota	Yuhi Sekiguchi  Yuichi Nakayama	SARD	1 lap	B