Dubai: Lexus secured its first victory of the season in the Super GT300 class as the No. 51 Lexus JMS P.MU LMcorsa RC F GT3 driven by Yuichi Nakayama and Sho Tsuboi at the Fuji Speedway recently.
Held under a clear bright sky, the Fuji 500-km race, round 2 of the series, is the second longest race of the SUPER GT season, running for more than three hours, and also the most popular event on the calendar.
“This has been a great performance by the No. 51 RC F GT3 team and is testimony to the capability of the Lexus RC F and the racing prowess of the entire team," said Takayuki Yoshitsugu, Chief Representative, Middle East and North Africa Representative Office, Toyota Motor Corporation.
"I congratulate the drivers and support staff for putting on such an excellent race,” Yoshitsugu added.
Trailing in fourth in the early stages of the race, the No. 51 Lexus RC F GT3 with Yuichi Nakayama behind the wheel jumped up one place into third to chase the two frontrunners at the same pace as theirs.
As the cars in the first and second places pulled up for their routine pit stops, the No. 51 Lexus RC F GT3 pursued a different strategy of holding off longer and delaying the stop-off.
Once in the lead after the first and second-placed cars had made their pit stop, Nakayama made a hard spurt to gain ground on the leading pack and it was not until the 41st lap that he brought his car into the pit.
When all of the cars had finished their first routine pit stop, the No. 51 Lexus RC F GT3 was still in third and 19 seconds off the pace.
In this middle stint of the race, it was the rookie Tsuboi, having taken over from Nakayama, who showed outstanding driving and fast laps to slowly close the gap to the second-placed car.
On the 60th lap, a left-front tire burst on the 300R curve forced the car leading the charge to make an earlier-than-scheduled pit stop, allowing the car placed just behind to pull into the lead, with the No. 51 Lexus RC F GT3 following about five seconds back in second place.
As the new frontrunner pulled up for a second routine pit stop on the 70th lap, Tsuboi, with no one in front of him now, ran consecutive super-fast laps to close the gap until he brought the car in for its second pit stop on the 80th lap.
The team pulled off some fast pit work, adding just enough fuel to finish the short remaining laps, enabling the No. 51 Lexus RC F GT3 to get out of the pit and back into the race in just 39 seconds.
As a result, the No. 51 Lexus RC F GT3, with Nakayama back behind the wheel, was able to keep the lead, and although the chasing car pulled up to within one second of its tail, Nakayama hung strong to pull away and blitz his way to the checkered flag for a win.
With the Lexus LC 500 having already won the Super GT 500 race held earlier in the day, the RC F GT3’s maiden victory completed a double win for the Lexus team on their home track of Fuji.
“I am very happy that we were able to win here at Lexus’ home track. In the opening round we lacked speed, so we thought that we would have a difficult time here at Fuji if something didn’t change," said Yuichi Nakayama.
"But, Bridgestone developed some outstanding tires for us. The result in yesterday’s qualifying was disappointing, but today we had the performance we needed and we were able to run a good race,” he said.
