Following six weeks off after the second round at Fuji behind, the battle of Super GT series resumed with the only overseas event of the championship, Super GT International Series Malaysia, at Sepang International Circuit. Because of the location of the country which is close to the equator, the cars, drivers and tires had always faced extremely hot and tough conditions at Sepang. However, as the time table was revised to put off the session and the race for a few hours, the conditions were much more comfortable for everyone.

The qualifying session on Saturday began with Q1 for the GT300 cars. The air/surface temperatures were 33/40 degrees Celsius, which were significantly lower than those from the past events. Among the Yokohama shoed GT300 cars, Hideki Yamauchi in La Seine Lamborghini GT3 was the fastest and in third at the end of Q1. The other two JLOC entered cars also performed well, as Takayuki Aoki put his ManePa Lamborghini GT3 in fifth and Koji Yamanishi in Crystal Croco Lamborghini GT3 ended the session in eighth, so one could expect their good result in Q2 and thus good starting grids for them.

The next act on the track was Q1 for the GT500 cars. WedsSport ADVAN SC430 and D'station ADVAN GT-R, by the hands of Andre Couto and Michael Krumm, made their effort to clear Q1 in the top eight. But, probably because of the unexpectedly low temperatures and the less than perfect car set up, both drivers couldn't exploit their cars' potential. As a result, Krumm had to settle for lowly 14th with 1'57”245 and so did Couto for 15th with 1'57”427 and they couldn't make their way into Q2.

The Q2 session for GT300 started at ten past five p.m. Contrary to the expectations, Manabu Orido, who drove ManePa Lamborghini GT3, was classified in fifth at the end of the session and the fastest among the JLOC's cars because the team wanted to save the tires that the cars were required to start the race with. This gave the honor of the best Yokohama shoed qualifier to the reigning champion car, Endless Taisan Porsche, as Naoki Yokomizo set the fourth fastest time in the session. By the way, the winner of the previous Fuji round, Panasonic apr Prius GT, was 14th in Q1 and narrowly missed making its way into Q2, mainly because of a 40kg handicap weight.

A bit of typical Sepang weather came back on Sunday midday and when the warm-up session began at eleven o'clock, the surface temperature had already exceeded 40 degrees. In addition to this 30 minute session, the Yokohama equipped GT500 and GT300 teams utilize the track time for the Circuit Safari attraction as well to optimize their set up for the 54 lap race.

The formation lap got underway at four o'clock p.m. Although the thermometer still read 33 degrees for the air and 42 for the track surface, the people on the starting grids could feel much more comfortable than they had done in the past, thanks to the late start of the race.

The two Yokohama shoed GT500 cars had to start from the back end of the grids, with Krumm at the wheel of D'station ADVAN GT-R and Couto for WedsSport ADVAN SC430. Both of them made clean starts and followed Epson HSV-010 in a close formation.

On Lap 8, Zent Cerumo SC430 lost a lot of ground due to an accident. As a result of this, the Yokohama duo moved up to 13th and 14th but from then on the gap with the car ahead of them was gradually increasing. On Lap 11, Couto overtook Krumm to exchange the positions between them. Their lap times were consistent but weren't good enough to keep the gap with the closest rival constant.

In such a difficult situation, Couto brought WedsSport ADVAN SC430 back to the pit to change to Seiji Ara on Lap 21. D'station ADVAN GT-R came in five laps later to change from Krumm to Hironobu Yasuda. Although they resumed racing in 15th and 14th respectively, the duo regained one place each by the second pit stop of Zent Cerumo SC430 on Lap 31.

Yasuda at the wheel of D'station ADVAN GT-R drove consistently at a pace of 2'00” to 01” per lap and was quickly reducing the gap with Epson HSV-010 ahead of him. But, when the gap was cut down to just four seconds, the checkered flag fell and the Yokohama shoed GT-R finished the race in 13th.

Similarly, Ara in WedsSport ADVAN SC430 was also driving in a consistent pace and looked to end the race in 14th. But Zent Cerumo SC430 in pursuit was clearly faster than Ara's car, so he had no choice but to give way to the Zent car on the final lap. This meant the WedsSport car crossed the finish line in 15th and was the last finisher of the race.

As for the GT300 class, Orido in ManePa Lamborghini GT3 had a great opening lap and was running in third at the end of the lap, while Endless Taisan Porsche with Yokomizo at the wheel lost a position at the start. Orido kept the position throughout his stint and came in the pit on Lap 22 to change to Aoki. At the pit stop, the team replaced all four tires for the second stint.

At almost same time, Mugen CR-Z GT, running in second then, made a pit stop but the car spent less than 30 seconds only because the team replaced two rear tires only, plus the time required for refueling was very short, thanks to the car's good fuel consumption rate. In contrast, ManePa Lamborghini GT3 needed more than one minute before rejoining the race. Then, the race leading ARTA CR-Z GT also made a short stop by replacing only rear tires but their stop took about 37 seconds, so the ARTA car lost the lead position to the Mugen car when both cars went back to the track. Nevertheless, the very quick stops gave them larger gaps with their main rivals than that they had before the pit stops.

Although ManePa Lamborghini GT3 fell down to fifth during the pit stop, Aoki steadily kept the position, followed by another Yokohama shoed car, GSR Hatsune Miku BMW in sixth. The BMW had had to settle for lowly 16th in the qualifying session but Tatsuya Kataoka's great effort and a quick pit stop pushed the car up to the position. And Nobuteru Taniguchi's drive in the second half of the race was also good enough to remain in the same position until the finish.

The third highest Yokohama shoed finisher was Leon SLS, driven by the Kurosawa brothers, Haruki and Tsubasa, which finished in eighth in the class. The Mercedes had a brake problem during the qualifying session and had to start the race from the 15th grid. But the car was the second fastest in the class in the warm up session on Sunday morning and the brothers had a good race that reflected the true potential of the car. Particularly, Tsubasa did a splendid job despite he came back after a long absence from the professional level racing activities.

　[Result : 5th in the GT300 class]
“The tire performance was simply very good with our car and I actually had quite a good stint in the first half of the race. I had some strange feelings for a while during the stint but I don't know why... But anyway the biggest factor was the time spent at our pit stop.

“I think our tires were very good and the speed of race leading two CR-Zs mainly came from the car development, not from their tires. We just couldn't beat the difference in the pit stop time. But I hope to have a good race in the next Sugo round by using different strategies because we wouldn't be able to fight with the CR-Zs unless taking different way of thinking, such as replacing only two tires or even running throughout a race with one set of tires.”

“For this Sepang round, we provided the improved GT500 tires that were based on the results from the testing here during the off season and a few more findings from the first two rounds of the season in Okayama and Fuji.

“The construction of tires for WedsSport ADVAN SC430 was the same with those used at the Fuji round but those for D'station ADVAN SC430 had partly different construction. In the testing, we had learned the tires from other manufacturers showed outstanding consistency of pace in long runs, so this was a good opportunity for us to know if we could close the gap or the other way around.

“However, we faced with unfavorable results in the qualifying session, as the surface temperature was lower than expected and the car set up might not be close to perfection. We hoped to make it up in the race but there was still around one second difference in race pace from the leading cars, so we had to admit that we still had a lot of work to do.
“Another pointless race was very disappointing for us but at least we learned something that could be effective in the future development. We will have a testing at Suzuka before the next round but we won't be able to utilize the findings from it for the tires to be used in the Sugo round because the date of the testing is too close to the race weekend, which is a shame. But we will give it our maximum effort anyway.

“We had thought the JAF GT cars should be very fast in the GT300 class here and our prediction was right, although it wasn't what we wanted. Remarkably, the two leading CR-Zs didn't need fresh front tires at their pit stops and their pace was still very good. So there is no room for any complacency for us.

“I think our situation in the GT300 class was far better than that of GT500. But it was clear for us that we need more work to improve the speed of out tires on a qualifying lap too. enable the teams to get the better starting grids.”