Jun 14, 2008
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2008 Super GT Round1/SUZUKA Circuit（5.807km） 14 March/Official test 15 March/Qualifying Condition in Practice Lap1: Weather/Rain Course Condition/Wet Air temperature/15→15→15℃ Surface temperature/19→21→23℃ Condition in Practice Lap2: Weather/Rain Course condition/Wet Air temperature/17→16→16→15℃ Surface temperature/30→29→26→25℃ |
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CUSCO gain 8th grid with the Super Lap Setting fastest time in rainy practice run with showing power of AWD |
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2008 Season AUTOBACKS SUPER GT Series was kicked off on 15 March under clear sky. As first day of competition, this day had official qualifying and many cars showed time attack battle with aiming “the fastest GT car in the world”. Here in Suzuka circuit, all team of the series attended the first official test by GTA, but it was still pre-series which was kind of like as “Open match” for professional baseball, so it would say that proper opening of this season was this round. |
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 Yamano and Sasaki were chatting with their rival before photo session.  All cars got together in front of pit at official scrutineering in the early morning.  Building concentration in cockpit at just before start for time attack  Keeping in touch with fans during “Kids-walking time” |
CUSCO RACING team’s machine, CUSCO DUNLOP SUBARU IMPREZA had had overhaul
completely during off season and ready to kick new season off with perfect
preparation. On practice run which held just before official program of
the opening round of this season, the machine which only had symmetrical
AWD with transaxle showed its power. In morning session, the Subaru set
second fastest lap. The fastest lap was set by one of GT500 machine. In
the afternoon session with better condition, the CUSCO Impreza kept top
time among GT300 class. This performance brought more motivation to whole
of team. In official qualifying, team will try to two sessions; Morning session is consisted two runs - exclusive run of each GT300/GT500 class for 20 minutes and mix up two classes for 20 minute. During the total 40 minutes running, top 10 cars can go to have “One car attack” in afternoon session (Super Lap system). From Cusco Racing, Yamano have attack on Super Lap. Yamano took in the course around 5 minutes in from Super Lap started. He set time 2”13sec-10sec in the beginning and after marked 2”07.184 with taking 3rd position, Yamano started to build pace up. His split on sector 1 was his new record, but in same time, one of car crashed at 130R corner which caused interruption by red flag. There was nothing could do under this circumstance and Yamano backed pit. After 15 minute break, the session restarted with 5minutes remaining. Yamano started attack again and made high pace same as when he recorded his best split, but loss bit of time at sector 3. Eventually he was not able to break his record, but finished the exclusive run in 7th among GT300 class. During GT500 class were having their 20 minutes exclusive run, team made change on machine setting. It was tactic to looking for Super Lap session in the afternoon, but even without any tasting it, Sasaki corresponded the setting adjustment and cleared compulsory time for qualifying. Before the Super Lap, as second time of official qualifying session, 15 minutes session per each class was set. It accepted Team to check their machine again. After that, CUSCO RACING had attack to Super Lap from third in order. For sector 3(Hairpin - Back straight) solely, team set fastest lap when they finished the run. After all car complete their attack, CUSCO RACING still positioned in 4th which proved their speed. Although team finished the Super Lap in 8th same as first qualifying session in the morning. From this result, their starting order for Sunday race was decided from 8th grid in fourth row. |
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Team quote: Managing director, Hisashi Matsuda “It’s kind of the time/position which we expected. On yesterday’s practice run, we were able to take maximum advantage of Symmetrical AWD. But also it’s true that we could be evaluated as position by completing every run. So it was still practice, but we now reached to the point where we could assess ourselves. It made me relief. We made change on setting between exclusive run and mix run in the morning session, because to check the balance of down-force. Sasaki was comfortable with the setting, but also we would like to know feeling from Yamano to make sure our axis of valuation. Until tomorrow’s main race, we are going to look our setting over again and check it on free run before the race. We got good atmosphere so far, so we hope to take this over to main race until finish.” Driver quote: Tetsuya Yamano “I’m feeling good as marked fastest time yesterday. I think our machine had been improving through last season, but also we had lots of trouble which didn’t accept us to run properly. It’s kind of up and down… so I think driving consistently like this time is very important. Our machine has big potential and I think there is lots of area that we can make improving. So I’m having very optimistic view. We can be faster more and more. Some time we had hard time to convert our evolution to time, but we got good mood. Tomorrow? Honestly I can not be optimistic about this. I ’m pretty sure that we will have to endure some point in the race. If we could overcome them, then we would be able to finish in sixth, that’s my estimation. We have good mood anyway, so I want to complete the race definitely.” |
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| Public practice day. Team showed fuelling on the competition | With fastest in practice, team’s motivation is boosted! | Driving under clear sky which turned better from practice day |
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2008 Super GT Round1/SUZUKA Circuit（5.807km） 15 March/Main race Condition in Free run: Weather/Sunny Course Condition/Dry Air temperature/11→13℃ Surface temperature/17→21℃ Condition in Main race: Weather/Rain Course condition/Dry Air temperature/16→19→17℃ Surface temperature/29→33→29℃ |
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With steady run and excellent staff’s effort Team made good start of the season with finishing in 6th at opening round |
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Continuing good weather from previous day in Suzuka Circuit, main race of opening round of 2008 Super GT got underway. CUSCO RACING, which reinforced teaming and having 11th season with GT racing, got 8th grid start by result of official qualifying in previous day. In front of over 30,000 spectators, CUSCO RACING started to make another step from this 2008 season. Team marked fastest time of the class at both two session of practice run which held in rainy Friday and made good start for weekend race. On official qualifying on Saturday when condition got turn to dry, team set 8th fastest at first session and advance to Super Lap. |
 CUSCO Circuit Ladies 2008 (From the left) Rie Higuchi Ai Amano Sho Azato Miki Nagasawa |
Team kept their good rhythm with getting 8th grid at the Super Lap. For
collecting driving data for development of machine setting effectively,
keeping running without trouble would be fundamental. Therefore, making
perfect preparation with resolving all trouble in advance would be important
as well. This weekend, CUSCO RACING taken this theory well and it looked
that the team’s strength had been improved much. In fact, team didn’t face
any major trouble through this weekend. In main race, eventually team also
had no trouble and team personnel didn’t make any mistake. Free run which started from 9am was consisted with two session; 10 minutes Circuit Safari (extra session) started from 9:25am followed by 30minutes free run from 9:35am. Using the 10minutes extra run effectively, team continued to look better machine setting. Of course driver could not drive in proper speed, but they were accepted to check their machine. In the end, CUSCO RACING recorded 4th fastest time in 2”08.662. |
| After free run, spectators had opportunity to visit pit during exciting Pit walk time. Both drivers, Yamano and Sasaki were attending at front of pit and meet lots of fans. After last support race finished, finally main event of the day, race of Super GT got underway and started formation lap on 2pm. |
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 Drivers gave their all time to preparation, also having driver change simulation  On free run, they did pit-in simulation many times.  Director Omizo gave his cheer to Yamano who was waiting race start.  CUSCO Impreza was on grid just four cars behind from GT500! |
After one lap rolling, main race made proper start. The race was started from GT500 which led Nissan GT-Rs which came back to GT race after long time break. Following GT500, GT300 class had started with high expectation of close battle. Now 52 laps - total 300km length race had started. Yamano took wheel on first stint of race. He showed consistent drive and kept 8th position. Among front runners, Shiden which started from pole position battled for top with RX-7. Further down, Porshe, Garaiya, Fairlady Z and Celica made other form with making nail biting battle and waiting any chance to take over. Among such as chaotic battle, Yamano made consistent approach and carried pit-in at mid of race. He succeeded to judge best timing for the scheduled pit-in, but also the position was maintained by Yamano’s steady driving at first stint. For those Yamano’s effort, team staffs reacted by great job in pit. Swapping tyres, fuelling and of course driver change. Team had done those routine works without any mistake and sent next driver Sasaki back to the course in 9th position. From then, Sasaki’s stint started on another half of the race. Sasaki marked his best time as the 2”10 something. It’s still not reached to Yamano’s 2”9 slot which he marked on lap2, but concerning rougher condition on later section of the race, it’s kind of pace for top 5. On his first race with CUSCO DUNLOP SUBARU IMPREZA, Sasaki also showed excellent performance. However, near end of the race, Sasaki was starting to loss some time. In fact, his machine had trouble on fuelling area. Fortunately the trouble was not too serious and Sasaki maintained the pace as fast as he could, kept driving. He completed 47 laps and got checker in 6th. It’s the first point position since Sepang round last year and result of new team structure and having high motivation within whole team including drivers. Now we can have higher expectation with the team! |
| Team quote: Team director, Toshio Omizo “I’m happy with get some point in opening round with having good mood from the start. Of course we can not completely satisfy with this, but today I would like to praise whole of team.” Team quote: Managing director, Hisashi Matsuda “I’m happy to complete this race for looking up next step. In other hand, we had unpredictable trouble, so it’s not acceptable to satisfy yet.” Driver quote: Tetsuya Yamano “After qualifying, I estimated finishing in 6th and it exactly came true as position. But our race was over expectation. In near end, we had some trouble that our engine didn’t work perfectly, but we had enough margins, so was not too serious. It’s kind of returning good race in Sepang last year. It’s result by all effort of the team who did everything which they should do. But I hope we get speed more and more!” Driver quote: Kouta Sasaki “It’s kind of my first race which I was able to drive enough laps. Eventually we completed the race and I think it’s most important. I had been learning AWD system and during familiarize with it, we got 6th. We know we got another task (machine trouble), but also got some good feeling for near future. I determine that I joined the team for victory, so I’m going to do my best for rest of season as well.” |
