Team JLOC enjoyed a successful weekend as the Japanese Super GT series moved on to the Fuji Speedway, the #88 Lamborghini Murciélago RG-1 claiming GT300 pole position and finishing on the podium, just fourteen seconds off the winner.

Following a strong fourth place finish for Marco Apicella and  Koji Yamanishi during the previous round of the Super GT series at Okayama in the #88 Murciélago RG-1, Team JLOC (Japanese Lamborghini Owners Club) arrived at the 4.563km-long Fuji Speedway for round 4 of the 2007 series with its pair of Murciélagos, the V12-engined machines again joined in the pit garage by its brace of new Reiter Engineering-built Gallardos, all four Raging Bull machines turning out in the GT300 class.

The first official qualifying session began at 10:20 last Saturday. The Fuji track surface was dry and the temperature at the start of the session was 19 degrees centigrade, with a track surface temperature of 30 degrees. The first 20 minutes of qualifying were reserved for the GT300 class. The first car to post a top time was the #88 Murciélago RG-1 with Marco Apicella at the wheel, the Italian driver posting a fastest lap in 1 min. 42.515 sec. The next fastest time after that came from the #43 Arta Garaiya (Morio Niita) and the third fastest was set by the #26 Porsche (Shinichi Yamaji).

The second qualifying session for all the contestants began at 15:10. The GT300 class ran the first 15 minutes, followed by the GT500 class in the next 15 minutes. At the start of the session the air temperature had risen slightly from the morning session to 21 degrees C. and the track surface temp. to 30 degrees. Apicella in the #88 Murciélago again held sway on the timesheets.

The Super Laps began with the GT300 class cars. The first runner, the #31 MR-S (Kyosuke Mineo) improved on its morning time by a big margin, indicating that a strong race for the pole position would follow. The next in order, the No. 7 RX-7 (Hiroyuki Iiri), was unable to make its time trial due to sensor malfunction in the engine. The third runner, the #62 Vemac 408R (Shinsuke Shibahara) turned in a 1 min. 42.185 sec. time, more than 0.3 seconds faster than the morning session's fastest qualifying time. This became the initial target time for the remaining machines. Just after that, the #101 MR-S (Kazuya Oshima) and the sixth runner, the #33 Porsche (Mitsuhiro Kinoshita) ran exactly the same time of 1 min. 42.309 sec. to stand even behind #62. This meant that #33, one of the morning's leaders was now behind #101 in the starting order. After that, the #26 Porsche and the #43 Garaiya were unable post times faster than #62 and the following pair.
 

Thus, seemed for a moment that Shinsuke Shibahara was about to set a new record for most pole positions by a driver. But the final runner, the #88 Murciélago RG-1 (Marco Apicella) , ran very fast in the last sector of the course after trailing #62's time slightly through the first two sectors and managed to cross the finish line at 1 min. 42.112 sec. to claim the class pole position.

This was the first pole for Apicella since the round five of the Super GT series at Sugo last year, which was also set in the Team JLOC Murcielago RG-1. The Italian was elated to have put the Team JLOC-run Lamborghini on pole: "The machine was great, and I think I got a very good time. I have been racing here in Japan for almost 20 years now, and it is so good to see a privateer team achieve results like this. I was shouting for joy so loud inside the car that I nearly lost my voice."

The early stages of the 500km race in the GT300 class saw the pole starting Murciélago (Marco Apicella/Koji Yamanishi) holding the lead followed the two rapid Porsche machines, the #33 (Mitsuhiro Kinoshita/Yuya Sakamoto) leading the #26 (Shinichi Yamaji/Nobuteru Taniguchi). The Porsches were unable to keep to the pace and eventually dropped back down the order. The #62 Vemac 408R moved up into the chasing position but it retired. However the Michelin-shod #43 Garaiya and the #101 MR-S were able to take advantage of the Murciélago's greater fuel thirst, these two cars able to run just one pitstop to vault past the race leader as the V12-engined Italian machine pitted for the second time.

The #88 Murciélago however regained second place in GT300 when the #101 car lost time after sustaining accident damage. Apicella eventually bringing it over the finish line after 3 hours and 20 minutes of racing, just 14.332 seconds behind the race winning #43 Garaiya. The sister Team JLOC #87 Murciélago RG-1, driven by Yasutaka Hinoi and Atsushi Yogo, came home in ninth. Only one of the two Team JLOC Gallardos made the qualifying cut, the #67 entry piloted by Naohiro Furuya and Muneyuki Kurihara, which retired after 65 laps.