06.06.2004 Hitotsuyama Racing AND Lamborghini Team JLOC are working hard to be ready AND competitive for the next round of the JGTC after both teams struggled last time out at Sugo

The Ferrari running Hitotsuyama Racing and Lamborghini Team JLOC are working hard to be ready and competitive for the next round of the Japanese GT Series after both teams suffered a difficult time last time out at Sugo.

In less than spectacular weather, Sportsland Sugo welcomed an impressive crowd of 51,500 for round two of the JGTC, showing signs of the continuing growth in the popularity of Japan's premiere motorsports series.

However all that made the journey to the circuit Miyagi Prefecture were witness to most eventful 81-lap race. Toyota cars came out on top, the Supra driven by Yuji Tachikawa and Seiji Ara winning the GT500 class while the Celica driven by Takayuki Aoki and Nobuteru Taniguchi claimed the GT300 victory.

The Hitotsuyama Team are campaigning a Prodrive-built Ferrari 550 Maranello, driven by sportscar regulars Hidetoshi Mitsusada and Tado Uematsu, in the GT500 class this year. Pitting the Le Mans winning GTS class Ferrari against the factory entered Toyota Supra, Honda NSX and Nissan Fairlady Z squads, has proved to be a real baptism of fire.

After only finishing 15th in the season opener at TI Aida, Sugo's round two saw the team's fortunes take a nose-dive with car crashing heavily during the first qualifying session while Tado Uematsu was behind the wheel, leaving them no option but to withdraw from the race.

Sugo was to be the debut race for the Lamborghini Murcielago R-GT of Team JLOC. Late delivery of the car, resulted in the team making its first tests in Japan at the circuit during the Friday free practice sessions. Problems meant that the R-GT, driven by Koji Yamanishi and Wada-Q, could not participate in the qualifying sessions due to a lack of parts. The final decision to withdraw from the event came after not being able to run on Saturday.

Now both teams are looking to bounce back in time for the next round of the JGTC as the series heads overseas to race over 56 laps of the 5.542km Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia in two week's time.

The Yokohama-shod Dome-developed JIM Rodeo Drive Ferrari 360 driven by Hideshi Matsuda and Ichijyo Suga however upheld Italian honour at Sugo, setting the fastest lap in on its way to claiming the final GT300 podium position. The pair, who raced to GT300 victory at Aida's opening JGTC round back in April, drove a storming race, battling back up the leaderboard after the car had earlier suffered a drive through penalty.

The previous day they had led out the second row of the grid after a tight qualifying session, just one tenth off the pole sitting Amemiya Asparadrink Mazda RX-7, while the second JIM Ferrari 360 of Tetsuya Tanaka and Atsushi Yogo wound up three places further back.

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.