The Team JLOC Lamborghini Murciélago RG-1 claimed its first ever Japanese Super GT Series pole position at the weekend, storming the GT300 class "Super Lap" shootout after taking full advantage of the mixed track conditions, in the hands of Marco Apicella.

The qualifying sessions for the Sugo GT 300 km race, round 5 of the 2006 Japanese Super GT Series, took place on Saturday (22nd July) at Sportsland Sugo circuit, located in the Miyagi Prefecture. The first qualifying session started at 11:00 am, and the conditions were wet as the rain that had been falling from the previous day before had continued throughout the morning. The first 20 minutes of the session was reserved for the GT300 class before the more powerful GT500 machines were due to hit the track. The red flags were waved when the no 77 Subaru Advan Impreza ran off the track just five minutes into the session, stopping proceedings temporarily. While preparations were being made to restart the session fog set in that caused another 20-minute delay before the session could resume again. Once the timed laps were underway, it was Kota Sasaki in the no 46 Nissan Z who took the initial lead with a lap time that dipped under the 1 minute 34 second barrier. Sasaki went on to better that with a 1:32.828 lap that put him well ahead of the competition. Following him in second and third positions with times in the low 1:33 range were Tetsuya Tanaka in the Jims Ferrari 360 Modena and Takuya Kurosawa driving the No 96 Nissan 350Z. The latter machine then went off the track and the red flags came out to stop the session for the second time. As the allotted 20 minutes for the GT300 competitors ran out and the GT500 class machines started to come out on the track, a couple more GT300 machines ran off the track and the red flags came out for the third time.

Due in part to the delays (red flags) during the morning sessions, the afternoon qualifying session got off tpo a late start at 14:50 hours. The first 15 minutes were reserved exclusively for the GT300 class again, and the next 15 for the GT500 class. All the teams used this time to work on their final settings. Once again, several machines ran off the track and the session had to be stopped twice for short intervals.

As the "Super Lap" shootout approached the rain turned into a fine misty drizzle and the Sportland Sugo track began to dry in some sections, making for very complex conditions.
 

This led some teams to choose slick tyres for the "Super Lap" while others stuck with rain tyres. The run-off started with the GT300 machines. This first to run was the no 88 Team JLOC Lamborghini Murciélago RG-1 driven by regular driver Marco Apicella who recorded a 1:28.040 lap on slick tires. The third car out, the no 2 Apple Shiden driven by Hiroki Kato was also on slicks, and he posted a 1:28.161 lap, which was just fractionally slower than Apicella. By contrast the second, fourth and fifth cars out were all on rain tyres and the drivers' failed to breach the 1 minute 32 second barrier. This saw the final five cars choosing dry tyres for their runs but the Dunlop runners were unable to challenge the Yokohama-shod no 88 Lamborghini Murciélago RG-1 and the no 2 Apple Shiden.

As a result, the GT300 class pole position went to no 88 Lamborghini Murcielago RG-1, the team's first pole position of the year and their best performance since Marco Apicella and Yasutaka Hinoi race to victory in the opening round of the series back in March. "I never thought I was going to win the pole position," said Apicella. "The conditions out on the track today were changing so quickly that there was no time to think about anything else. It was difficult to decide on the tyres, but I finally decided to go with," he added.

The Team JLOC (Japanese Lamborghini Owners' Club) Lamborghini Murcielago RG-1 was developed and built in Germany by Reiter Engineering. The team are running two of these V12-engined machines in the Japanese Super GT Series this year, and the sister no 87 example was qualified in 21st place on the grid at Sugo by team regulars Koji Yamanishi and Wada-Q.

The Sugo 300 km took place yesterday in dry and warm conditions as the rain that had been falling all weekend faded away. After 1 hour, 49 minutes and 21.084 seconds of hard racing on the 3.704 km circuit, victory went to the Nissan Z driven by Kota Sasaki and Taku Banba. In one of the tightest ever finishes after 75 laps the first four GT300 cars home were separated by just 0.785 of a second. The two Lamborghinis though were unable to match their qualifying pace during the race, sliding down the order with the no 87 car eventually finishing 2 laps down in 12th place, one lap and three positions ahead of the no 88.