Okusa Gives Nakajima Honda Third Straight GT500 Pole at Motegi

Photo: SUPER GT

Nakajima Racing has now taken pole for three straight rounds, and the Honda team's latest run came at the worst possible time for its rivals. Riki Okusa put the No. 64 Honda HRC Prelude GT on top of the GT500 qualifying order with a 1:36.572 in the 15-minute session. The car ran a special livery honoring Dunlop, which is supplying its last weekend in a tire battle that has defined much of the series' recent history.

Okusa had already looked strong on Friday, when he topped the lone practice session. That wasn't luck. He'd tested at Motegi before the track was resurfaced, so he arrived with a head start on the new grip levels. Teams that get track time on a fresh surface often find their baseline setups are closer to the mark, and the pace suggests that's what happened here.

Honda Holds the Front Row, Bridgestone Leads the Majority

Tomoki Nojiri joined Okusa on the front row in the No. 16 ARTA Prelude, 0.345 seconds adrift. That makes it an all-Honda front row, and Nojiri was the quickest of the Bridgestone-shod cars, which make up the bulk of the GT500 field. Here's the thing: the gap to Okusa is more than the margin between most of the cars behind him, so Honda's advantage looks more than a single-lap fluke.

Nirei Fukuzumi was third in the No. 14 Rookie Racing Toyota GR Supra, just 0.025 seconds back from Nojiri. Sena Sakaguchi was fourth in the Racing Project Bandoh Toyota, the only car in the GT500 field running Yokohama tires. Running a different compound with a different grip character makes its single-lap result a useful read on how the tire choice plays out at this track, and Sakaguchi's fourth-place time suggests that choice is competitive.

Nissan's best was Atsushi Miyake in fifth, in the Kondo Racing Z NISMO. Team Impul's Bertrand Baguette was sixth, one place behind him. Nissan's pace is respectable without threatening the front, and the gap to the leaders says more about where the Z NISMO sits in the current performance pecking order than about the car's potential.

The Title Fight Lines Up on Row Four

The two cars most directly in the points battle will start side by side on the fourth row. Kenta Yamashita took seventh in the No. 36 TOM'S Toyota, beating Tadasuke Makino's Team Kunimitsu Honda by only 0.014 seconds. Yamashita and co-driver Sho Tsuboi hold a three-point lead over Makino and Naoki Yamamoto heading into Saturday.

Both cars carry fuel flow restrictors for the race. Series balance-of-performance adjustments like these are designed to keep the field close, and they often make the final few rows of qualifying less meaningful than the headline times suggest. A front-row time means less when the race strategy is built around a fixed fuel allowance. Expect the title contenders to race conservatively in the early laps and make their moves later.

Outside title hopes took a serious knock from Real Racing. Yuto Nomura locked up during what looked like a pole-contending lap, and a front-right tire blew. That left Nomura and co-driver Koudai Tsukakoshi 14th and last on the grid. Katsumasa Chiyo also locked up at Turn 11 on his best lap in the works NISMO Nissan, which dropped him to 12th. Braking too hard on a slightly cooler or greasier surface is a common way to lose a qualifying lap, and two lock-ups in one session show how marginal the new tarmac was in the closing minutes.

Gainer's First GT300 Pole in Nissan Z

In GT300, Gainer scored its first pole with the self-constructed Nissan Z, driven by Ryuichiro Tomita. It's also Tomita's first pole. He set a best time of 1:45.418 in the 20-minute session, 0.368 seconds clear of the field. The Kyoto Prefecture-based team hasn't stood on pole since the 2022 season, so this result carries real weight for a small outfit that builds much of its own hardware.

Shinichi Takagi grabbed the other front-row spot in the K-tunes Lexus RC F GT3, which won at Autopolis. He did it late in the session, and it's a fitting result for his co-driver Morio Nitta, who announced his retirement from the series earlier in the week. Takashi Kogure was third in the JLOC Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, ahead of Hideki Yamauchi's Subaru BRZ and Kazuto Kotaka's apr Lexus LC500h in the No. 31 car.

The most interesting drive in the class may belong to Ritomo Miyata. Running as a late substitute at CarGuy MKS Racing, he qualified ninth in his first competitive session behind the wheel of the Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo. That gave co-driver Kiyoshi Umegaki a useful boost in the standings while several other title contenders struggled. Joao Paulo de Oliveira was 17th in the championship-leading Kondo Racing Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3, Yuui Tsutsumi was 21st in the Inging Toyota GR86 GT, and Togo Suganami was 22nd in the LEON Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

At the back, Rookie Racing's Hiroaki Ishiura put the all-new GR GT3 concept 27th of 28 cars, 2.687 seconds off the pace with a best of 1:48.105. Running a development car in a class this competitive means qualifying is mostly about data, not position.

What Comes Next at Motegi

The first of two 250km races at Motegi starts at 2 p.m. local time (12 a.m. ET). Honda has the pace at the front, and Toyota's title contenders are close enough to make Saturday's race a tactical one. Watch how Okusa and Nojiri manage their early stints, and whether Yamashita and Makino can gain ground on each other without taking unnecessary risks. In GT300, Gainer's pole gives the team a real chance to convert its qualifying speed into points, which would be a meaningful result for a team that doesn't often start at the front.