20.06.2004 The Japanese GT Championship's Italian contingent was swelled with the arrival of the Amprex Lamborghini Murcielago R-GT, as the series headed overseas to Malaysia this weekend
The Japanese GT Championship's
Italian contingent was swelled to three as the series headed overseas to the
Sepang International Circuit this weekend. Forty two cars arrived at the home of
the Malaysian Grand Prix to take part in yesterday's 54-lap race around the 5.542 km
track.
Malaysian outfit Amprex Motorsport took delivery of a customer Lamborghini Murcielago R-GT just in time to make a series debut at their home race. They were joined by a second Murcielago R-GT, run by Team JLOC, which briefly appeared in practice last time out at Sugo, and the Hitotsuyama Racing-run Prodrive-built Ferrari 550 Maranello.
With the first qualifying session hit by driving rain, the three teams, all struggling to get their evolving machines onto the pace, were left with only the second warm, dry session to fully prepare for what was to be a hot, dry race.
The brand new Michelin-shod Amprex Motorsports Murcielago R-GT, piloted by newcomer Norman Simon, led the way, his 2:05.056 fastest lap, just five seconds off pole position. Two places further back, and bringing up the rear of the GT500 field, came the similar car run by Team JLOC, which in the hands of Koji Yamanishi and Wada-Q, posted 2:10.571 best.
In the middle of this Murcielago sandwich was the Dunlop running Hitotsuyama Racing Ferrari 550 GTS Maranello, lining up 17th. At the front GT500 pole went to the Calsonic Nissan Z which set an unbeatable 2:00.16, just ahead of the two Tom's Toyota Supras, while in the GT300 class, the JIM Rodeo Drive Ferrari 360 driven by Hideshi Matsuda and Ichijyo Suga, could only managed 10th place, four slots ahead of its sister car.
After starting down in 13th place, the Denso Sard Toyota Supra GT pulled off a brilliant win following an intense battle in
blistering Malaysian heat. The car had been quick throughout the weekend, lead driver Jeremie Dufour setting the fastest in time the wet first official qualifying
session on Friday morning. The second session had been a completely different
story however, as their hard-compound tyres slowed the car to the seemingly
unlucky number 13 spot in the warmer conditions of the afternoon session.
Further back the Amprex Murcielago R-GT fared very well in its first ever race.
After starting from 15th, Genji Hashimoto and Norman Simon, ran steadily all the way to the flag to be
classified 12th overall, three laps behind the winner. It was pretty impressive
considering the car had to make an unscheduled pit stop early on.
Contrastingly, the Team JLOC Murcielago RG-T, running on Dunlop compounds, was plagued by the same woes
that had afflicted the black supercar during the morning's warm up session. A
broken left rear suspension unit after 20 laps stranded the car out on track. It
was an identical repeat of a fault first seen earlier in the day.
Fourteenth overall, and also three laps adrift, came the Ferrari 550 Maranello piloted by Hidetoshi Mitsusada and Tado Uematsu, while back in the GT300 class, the JIM Ferrari 360 Modenas crossed the line in fifth and ninth places.
Meanwhile, in mid December the JGTC will travel
to the US for a one-off non-championship race at the Fontana Speedway in
California, which will see the series' top 25 cars take on local entries. The
event, known as 'GT Live', will also include a "JGTC Against The World" team
time attack competition in which the top 6 finishers of the race on Saturday
compete against 6 top cars from around the world.
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