The next stop for the 2013 Super GT series after the Suzuka 1000km was Fuji GT 300km Race. This was the championship's second visit of the season to Fuji Speedway and the first event of the season's remaining three race meetings. So the fights for the championship titles were getting fiercer and, in such a situation, the performances of Yokohama equipped cars were generally impressive.

It was cool on Saturday with the air temperature staying around 25 degrees Celsius and the qualifying session was run under overcast skies. As for the Yokohama shoed GT500 cars, Andre Couto drove WedsSport ADVAN SC430 and Hironobu Yasuda was at the wheel of D'station ADVAN GT-R in Q1.

Just three minutes before the end of the session, Couto was the seventh fastest with the time of 1'33”590 and then further improved his qualifying time to 1'33”478. But, as the opponents also cut down their times, he had to settle for 13th as the result of a very severe contest in the last minutes. Yasuda clocked 1'33”391 on his last qualifying attempt and the time was the ninth fastest at that time. At the end of Q1, D'station ADVAN GT-R was ranked in tenth, which meant both of the two Yokohama shoed cars couldn't make their way into Q2, after the extraordinarily close qualifying battle at a very high level.

In Q1 for the GT300 class, Daiki Sasaki in S Road NDDP GT-R set the fastest time. The car had had a turbo charger problem in the practice session in that morning but the team's mechanics had finished the engine replacement work just before the qualifying session began. To answer the team's effort, the two drivers of the car must have been even more motivated. So, Kazuki Hoshino who drove the car in Q2 also clocked 1'39”205, which was the fastest of all at the time, on his second lap in the session. Although he could improve the time to 1'39”198 on the next lap, one of his main rivals beat him after that and S Road NDDP GT-R ended the session in second.

Nobuteru Taniguchi, driving GSR Hatsune Miku BMW, took the fifth place in Q1 and his partner, Tatsuya Kataoka, defended the position in Q2. Tetsuji Tamanaka secured the seventh grid with his new race car, Mach GoGoGo Syaken GT-R.

While it rained on the Sunday morning, and the warm up session was run on the wet surfaces, the rain stopped falling and patches of blue sky could be seen around lunch time. With air/surface temperatures at 29/35 degrees, the 66 lap race began at two p.m. on the completely dry track.

Yasuda in D'station ADVAN GT-R fought hard in the early stage of the race. Even though he lost a position and completed the opening lap in 11th, he regained it on Lap 4 and then passed Motul Autech GT-R to move up to ninth on the next lap. Setting a remarkable lap time, 1'35”791, on Lap 7, Yasuda continued his pursuit for a higher position.

WedsSport ADVAN SC430 started the race with Couto at the wheel. He fell back to 15th during the opening lap but fought back to the place he started on Lap 6. Then further position gains were expected but, against all expectations, his pace was getting worse and he lost a few positions after that.

On Lap 19, when Yasuda was running in seventh and Couto in 15th, Epson HSV-010 crashed heavily on the pit straight and the Safety Car came out to clear the debris on the track. The pit lane entrance was opened on Lap 22 which was just at the beginning of driver change window, so many expected all GT500 cars rushed into the pits to get the mandatory pit stop done during the Safety Car period. But D'station ADVAN GT-R stayed out because the team anticipated the rain to come soon. By contrast, WedsSport ADVAN SC430 made the pit stop and Couto changed to Seiji Ara.

The racing resumed from Lap 25 with D'station ADVAN GT-R at the front of the field as the interim leader. While Yasuda tried to build the gap with others as much as possible, WedsSport ADVAN SC430 restored the pace by the hands of Ara and was gradually making up the lost ground. Then, around Lap 30, the long awaited rain, for Yasuda and his team, finally came but the amount of rainfall was too little to switch to the wet tires...

Under such a difficult track condition, Ara moved up to ninth on Lap 35. However, he momentarily lost the car control on the wet track at Turn 13 and hit a GT300 car which he was just lapping. Unfortunately, WedsSport ADVAN SC430 had considerable damage to its steering system as a result of the contact and was forced to retire, after crawling back to the pit.

Waiting for the chance to switch to the wet tires ? because then other cars would have to make pit stops again only for tires, D'station ADVAN GT-R was still leading the race but the gap with the second placed car was shrinking. On Lap 42, the team couldn't wait any longer and called Yasuda in to the pit to change to Michael Krumm. When the German rejoined the race, he found himself running in 11th, more than 30 seconds behind the tenth placed car.

Under the unstable weather condition with light rain, however, Krumm performed very well and clocked the lap times around one minute and 35 seconds which was better than the race leader at that time. Thanks to his effort, the over 30 second gap was steadily reduced and, on Lap 62, he finally overtook Denso Kobelco SC430 to move up to tenth. Krumm kept the position until the finish and D'station ADVAN GT-R earned a valuable championship point as a result of the persistent efforts.

In the GT300 class, Sasaki in S Road NDDP GT-R made a very good start and he was already leading the field at the first corner. Kataoka, driving GSR Hatsune Miku BMW, also gained a position after making a good getaway and joined a four car pack that was fighting for the lead. Soon after that, because ARTA CR-Z GT fell back a few places from second due to contact with another car, Kataoka effortlessly got up to third.

The intense fight between the top three still continued but the Safety Car was called in for the above mentioned reason on Lap 19 for the GT300 class leaders. Then the pit lane was opened two laps later and the decisive factor was whether coming in to the pit on this lap or not. Because, if the weather had gotten worse later, coming in this lap would have been the wrong decision, and if the conditions had stayed almost unchanged, it would have been the right one. In fact, it soon started to rain but it was too light to switch to the wet tires and the slick tires supplied by Yokohama worked really well on the damp track.

Among the teams that made the driver change on that lap, Taniguchi in GSR Hatsune Miku BMW was the first to get back on the track, followed by Koki Saga in Panasonic apr Prius GT. In sharp contrast to them, the ex-race leader, S Road NDDP GT-R, missed the best time to make the pit stop and did it only after the Safety Car period had ended, which resulted in losing a lot of ground.

When all cars had served mandatory pit stops, the new race leader was GSR Hatsune Miku BMW and Panasonic apr Prius GT followed in second. Shinya Hosokawa in Crystal Croco Lamborghini GT3 was now running in third by taking advantage of stopping during the Safety Car period, despite the car had started the race from the 14th grid! On Lap 45, Haruki Kurosawa, driving Leon SLS, moved up to fourth and, on Lap 57, Kazuki Hoshino at the wheel of S Road NDDP GT-R recovered to fifth. As these top five cars remained in their positions until the checkered flag fell, the Yokohama shoed cars swept from the first to fifth places, on top of the all Yokohama podium.

The long-awaited next victory for the driving pair of GSR Hatsune Miku BMW, Taniguchi and Kataoka, was a prompt revenge immediately after the last Suzuka race in which the car finished in second but was disqualified later for a technical infringement.

　[Result : Winner in the GT300 class]
“This is our first victory in a while, so I am happy with no reservation. Our car has been really fast from the practice sessions but, I have never imagined that we could win because the JAF GT cars have been equally fast. Of course, we always wanted to win, though. This time, the tires felt really promising and the feeling of the car was positive, so the chance to win was well within the scope of our strategy. But I just didn't think things went so smoothly.

“The team made a perfect judgment when the Safety Car came out and it developed into the situation that favored us. Then the rain started to fall, but not to the extent to switch to the wet tires, so I had to continue with the slick but I thought this was where I had to give everything for a good result. I drove very, very hard and managed to get clear away. So this was a really great weekend for us.”

“We have been well aware of the consistency in lap times in a high level that the other manufacturers' tires have provided recently and always kept it in mind when we developed our tires through the testing. For this Fuji round, we supplied the GT500 tires that were improved in that point of view by taking the data from the testing at Fuji and Suzuka 1000km race into account.

“In the qualifying session, our cars weren't able to make their ways into Q2. So still our efforts might not be good enough in this area but, as for the race pace, we certainly had a positive outcome. WedsSport SC430 failed to perform in the first half of the race, which we will check later what was happening then, but the car was able to run in a good and consistent pace with the harder tires in the second stint. D'station ADVAN GT-R chose to stay out when the Safety Car came out, which was the team's decision, and it might have been a great advantage if the rain had become heavier. In the event, the rain became lighter and the car lost a ground but Yasuda and Krumm set very good lap times in their respective stints, using the same type of tires. The final result wasn't very good but I think their performance proved that our tires definitely worked.

“As for the GT300 class, we were delightful to see the Yokohama shoed cars' podium sweep for the first time this season. As was the case for the GT500, we also supplied the new tires for the GT300 class that was improved in terms of the handling stability and the performance degradation. Needless to say, the teams did a very good job but I think it is safe to say our tires were clearly faster and more consistent than those from the other manufacturers under the unstable track conditions during the race. From the fact that our tires were fast under such conditions, we hope to find out some clues that are valuable for the future development.

“For both of the GT500 and GT300 tires, we will analyze the result and data from this race in detail. And we will keep working on the tire development to provide the comprehensively improved products in a higher level by enhancing the strong points and fixing the weak points.”